Listen to this episode here: Essential: Training & Development

Welcome to TALKING NUMBERS with Paul Jansz. You are reading the first episode of our new ‘CEO Series’, which will be launched 1st of every month. This month we have Nick Sinclair, Founder of TOA Global.

TOA is an outsourcing business that serves the accounting industry; they have been working with over 500 accounting firms in Australia and New Zealand, and more firms across US and Canada.

In this one, Paul and Nick discuss the importance of training, particularly the right kind of training. The ‘holistic training’ can help people to be better people, but not just technicians. And in the long term, this is essential for businesses to retain their people and have the capacity to grow.

Listen to the highlight


Topics:

  • The global shortfall
  • Growth capacity
  • The missing piece – training
  • Finding your strengths
  • The holistic training
  • Career path


Key Takeaways

The key thing is, is that we just don’t look holistically at making people better people, we look at making them a better technician. And we think the holistic way is going to help, ultimately, our business and our clients. – Nick

You’ve got what we call ‘success skills’, or Simon Sinek calls them ‘human skills’, other people call them ‘soft skills’ – I don’t think they’re soft at all.  These skills are really around leadership, people management, communication, time management, and effectiveness. A lot of firms don’t focus a significant amount of their training on those areas, which are the key areas. – Nick

One of the problems for firms to grow, is that they need capacity. And they need people to create the capacity, otherwise we can’t grow our revenue and profit. – Paul

One of the biggest challenges we had was the variability of training, and that really is a big factor in our client success. If they’re good at training, they normally succeed with having an offshore team. If they’re not great at that, they’re not great at managing people, then they normally fail, and it doesn’t work for them. – Nick 

I’ve got a real passion for helping people become better people. And that’s where we’re shaping that education part, really serve the accounting bookkeeping space in a way that no one else does. – Nick


Useful Links

Nick Sinclair’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicksinclair/
TOA Global: https://toaglobal.com/au/


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