Tax Departments Managed Across Multiple Locations

Regardless of how your tax team is organized, managing a tax organization across multiple locations is always a challenge. Even the most savvy management executives seek to find innovative ways to make people feel more connected. Whether you have a corporate tax team of 200 spread across 50 countries, or a corporate tax team of 10 spread across  3 countries; you must always strive to be creative to be effective. Years ago, everyone in the tax department was expected to be working in the same location; and now things have progressed to managing geographically dispersed teams. What can you do to build a strong and communicative tax team across multiple locations and countries?

The number one complaint heard from people who work in a location that is removed from corporate headquarters is “they feel disconnected”. In fact, I have been told this privately by tax professionals hundreds of times. Whether someone in your tax organization shares with you they feel disconnected or they do not share this information, this is a fact!  For instance, Country Tax Managers in remote locations separate from the headquarters day to day action often feel like they are alone on an island with no one to talk to about tax issues. How do you make people on your tax team feel connected? Here are a few ideas I discovered working with and observing lead tax executives. They are not my ideas; these are my observations working with top tax executives worldwide.

The first time I noticed a lead tax executive step out and do things differently in managing a tax team across multiple locations was in Silicon Valley. This lead tax executive was the first ever to hold eCoffee Meetings around the world. She was able to engage tax teams across multiple countries and languages and make the worldwide tax team feel more connected to each other at the same time. She created an environment that made it easier for people to feel connected and feel like they had something in common at the same time. It is an effective technique as people loved working for Lisa and I never forgot how connected she made her team feel.

Another time, I recognized a corporate tax executive doing something different was tax team bonding through a Team Bonding Room. You can easily set up a Team Bonding Room on Facebook. TaxConnections can also set up Private Tax Team Bonding Rooms for a tax organization. There are many ways to do it but the point is that all of people in the tax group can post information on themselves and interests. When your tax team realizes they have something in common with other members on the team; you have more opportunities to build better relationships within your tax organization. A team member conversations often flows into conversations like “Do you think we could improve the process or the results?” Tax professionals on the same team often come up with the best ideas after work or before the day starts when they are feeling refreshed.

On another occasion, I observed a VP Tax who had an internal contest for all team members. Everyone would submit an idea anonymously that would then be distributed to the tax group as a survey. The team would then vote on the best ideas for improving tax department processes across multiple locations. Every time a team member had an idea and it was voted by the team as the best idea the winner would receive a day off; a lunch; a special prize or something that got everyone involved in improving the team dynamics. These are just a few ideas to help you manage your tax department across multiple locations.

Please comment or send a message to kat@taxconnections.com  with any ideas you may add to this tax blog post.

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Kat Jennings, CEO
TaxConnections
858.999.0053
kat@taxconnections.com

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