WATCH: 2018 VBP Conference Highlights

WATCH: 2018 VBP Conference Highlights

by | Aug 24, 2018 | VBP Culture, Working at VBP

VBP’s most anticipated event of the year

It’s that time of the year again when clients from across Australia visit VBP to learn more about the value of outsourcing and of course, witness our unique and amazing culture.

Everyone’s excited!

This year, we had 20 delegates from 14 firms who joined us in our 4-day tour and conference. Just like last year, each day we ran different sessions.

Sessions:

  • Conference opening and tech updates
  • What will the advice business of the not-too-distant future look like?
  • The most effective back office you can run
  • Dealing with security of client information and how to reduce risks
  • How to scale your business
  • Getting the most from outsourcing

After the sessions, clients were able to spend the rest of their time in the office to meet and train their team members as well as talk to other staff with unique roles beyond the typical financial planning tasks. This way, our delegates were given the chance to understand our operations and gain some insights that may be helpful for their business.

They were also taken to notable food spots in the city to have their lunch and dinner. Not only were they able to enjoy our local food, this is also the time when they get to interact with their co-delegates and learn about each other’s businesses.

On the last day of the conference, we took the delegates to an island hopping trip. Of course, a visit to the tropics isn’t complete without a beach trip, right?

 

 

 

After their beach adventure, they headed back to the hotel to prepare for that evening’s event, one of the highlights of the conference, the Talent and Awards Night.

It was definitely picture-perfect – everyone dressed up in stunning Great Gatsby outfits, having fun and celebrating the exceptional talents showcased by the staff as well as the recognition of hard work and dedication of our team.

Watch the highlights from the conference:

With the efforts of everyone involved in the planning and organising, the conference was a huge success!

As we would always mention, VBP not only aims to provide great service to our clients but also build strong relationships with them.

Hosting this annual conference is our way of adding value to what we give to our clients—to help them understand our role better and to let them experience being part of an amazing culture.

 

The conference was on point and insightful, the time in the office was beyond special allowing us to see the most wonderful culture and talents that superseded any expectation. Meeting all VBP team was wonderful. The talent and awards night – WOW! Unless you are lucky enough to be a part of the evening you cannot understand the time, effort and commitment from every single person. Your culture and beliefs are evident within your entire team.

Thank you for every moment, I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent with VBP and have gained a massive amount of knowledge and insight from both your team and the other clients whom we were lucky enough to share our time with.

Loren Carr

Client Services and Relationship Manager, MBS Insurance

Overall the organisation, the chance to meet my team in person, the learnings from other attendees and  from how VBP operate made it easy to justify the time and the cost.
Peter Monahan

General Manager, EJM Financial Services

Great networking, positive open discussions between delegates about industry and practice operations.
Extremely well organised. Great to experience the VBP Office and it’s culture. Insightful conference sessions, being able to understand more of our VBP staff’s location and culture. Great value.

Luke Ellis

Operations Manager, UNICA Wealth

See photos from the conference on our Facebook Page:
Virtual Business Partners
WATCH: VBP Family Day 2018

WATCH: VBP Family Day 2018

by | Jun 25, 2018 | VBP Culture, Working at VBP

“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.”

At VBP, we respect each other and embrace diversity. People genuinely care for one another. Our bond goes far beyond the typical “co-worker” relationship—we are more than just a team; we are a family.

Celebrating One World and Family Spirit

This year, we held our very first VBP Family Day. Everyone had the chance to bring their families and loved ones along. It was an amazing Sunday filled with fun activities. In the same day, we also celebrated Father’s Day. We prepared a special tribute to all dads present in the event. There were talent presentations from families–kids sang and dance with their parents. Such a precious sight!

The VBP Family Day is a celebration of one of our core values: One World and Family Spirit. As we always mention, in VBP, we treat each other like family so it is also important for us that our loved ones get a glimpse of who we are as a company.

We believe it is important that our loved ones also get the chance to connect with our business by knowing what we do and who we work with; as well as understand our culture in order to build trust and confidence that we belong in a company that does not only give us the opportunity to grow, but also values what’s important to their team.

See photos in our VBP Careers & Culture Facebook page. And the highlights from the VBP Family Day 2018 in the video below:

3 Quick tips to build and grow a strong team

3 Quick tips to build and grow a strong team

by | May 31, 2018 | VBP Culture, VBP Milestones, Working at VBP

We have reached a new milestone!

Last March 2018, VBP has reached a new milestone—we are now 200 in our team! As we continue to cater to more financial planning firms in Australia, we also continuously (and rapidly!) grow our team here in the Philippines. Seems like yesterday when we were working as a team of 20. And now it’s four and a half years later and we’ve grown 10 times in number!

Being a culture-led business, growing our team and living our purpose are some of our main goals. See our Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal (BHAG) below:

We have a clear purpose, goal and plan, which is vital in keeping everyone aligned. (We use a one-page plan and learnt all about these principles from Gazelles coaching and from the book Scaling Up by Verne Harnish.)

Every company should have a clear vision for the business and of the four focus areas: People, Strategy, Execution and Cash. By far, the most important for our company is the decisions we make relating to ‘people’.

So how were we able to build, and now grow, a strong team? We focus on 3 things.

  1. Find the right people. The first step is, obviously, to hire people. As we are in a specialised business, we make sure that we find the right people for our team. Our recruitment team has developed detailed job descriptions for our open positions and makes sure they gather important data and assess the candidate’s competency. Of course, we also value culture fit. Aiming for cultural fit doesn’t mean that we are into the same kind of people and character, it isn’t a deal-breaker. However, we also consider this in order to maintain harmony beyond our growing number and diversity. We have adopted our recruitment methodology from Topgrading.
  2. Develop their competency. The next step is to use effective training strategies in order to develop your employees’ skills. Learning should never stop. With our growing number of clients, it is important that we expand our service offerings as well, and with that comes more training and development for our staff to make them indispensable to our clients. We encourage our people to be self-leaders and help one another by giving support or assistance to others regardless if they work with the same firms/teams or not. We want our team to flourish and not become stagnant in their profession. We have adopted ‘situational leadership’ as our framework for managing our team. Each of us learns about this through the book Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager.
  3. Give them a reason to stay. Once you’ve built your A-team, it’s time to focus on how to keep them. Building a strong culture is our way of showing our staff that we care—through employee programs, engagement activities and different reward systems. We make sure they feel comfortable in our office, not feeling restricted from anything, whilst maintaining a secure and professional workplace. Little treats keep us happy—beer Fridays, free breakfast, table tennis area, board games, karaoke—these are simple yet effective things to make your staff feel at home and have a nice working environment. You can learn more about our core values and culture here.

Hear it straight from our team on how they feel about working at VBP:

As we now focus on our next milestone to reach 300 staff by 2019, we remain focused on continuing to develop our people’s skills, to commit to improving advice delivery processes (via better use of technology) and maintain our unique business culture. This helps us with the longevity of our staff and the stream of people being referred to work with us.

Take a look at our journey
Watch: VBP Culture Camp 2018

Watch: VBP Culture Camp 2018

by | Apr 16, 2018 | VBP Culture

The importance of having a strong corporate culture (with your Outsourced Service Provider)

As you know by now, culture is a big deal in VBP.  As we continue to grow, the challenge lies on how to sustain the strong connection amongst our team members while allowing each employee to flourish on their own.

Our company’s purpose doesn’t stop with providing excellent back office support to financial firms. We also make sure that we provide the best working environment to our staff. We aim to be one family despite our growing number and diversity. We aim to keep our staff happy and enthusiastic–to work in a place where all their efforts, big or small, are valued; to work in a place where they can be themselves and share their talents and interests with their colleagues; to work in a place where it’s more than just ‘work’.

Each year, the VBP staff are divided in to teams (we call them ‘squads’) where they compete through the year in a range of activities to win the VBP Culture Cup. This year’s Culture Cup competition opened at the VBP Culture Camp 2018, a full day offsite team-building event. Energy overflowed as the cauldron was lit and the competition began. The squads presented their cheers and yells and played a series of games which encouraged teamwork and camaraderie. Of course, the much-anticipated part of the event was the search for the next VBP Culture Camp Ambassador and Ambassadress (us Filipinos love a beauty pageant). The winners will not only be the “faces” of VBP, but more importantly, they will be playing lead roles in developing a program for staff engagement that will cultivate and promote the VBP culture.

So why do we value culture so much? And why is it important for our clients?

Firstly, we believe that it is important for our clients to know that they are working with a company that cares about their people. Secondly, focusing on a strong culture makes good business sense and benefits us and our clients as we increase staff retention. Lastly, client satisfaction is greatly influenced by employee satisfaction—if our staff are happy with our company, they are motivated to perform well thus increasing efficiency and keeping clients happy.

Here are some stats from the previous year:

  • Average staff tenue increased by 30% in the past 12 months
  • 23% employees from staff referral (good staff refer good staff!)
  • 19% reduction in staff turnover since Jan 2017

#OurCultureIsOurBrand

Watch the highlights of the VBP Culture Camp 2018:

VBP - Cheers & Yells

VBP – Cheers & Yells

Tazmanian Devils bagged first place in the Cheers and Yells competition.

VBP - Games

VBP – Games

As the energy overflowed, the squads then played some fun games to encourage teamwork and camaraderie—Tug of War, Catch the Dragon’s Tail and Basketball (with a twist!).

VBP - The Pageant

VBP – The Pageant

The highlight and much anticipated part of the event was the search for the next VBP Culture Camp Ambassador and Ambassadress.

VBP - Culture Camp Ambassador & Ambassadress 2018

VBP – Culture Camp Ambassador & Ambassadress 2018

We crowned the new Culture Camp Ambassador, Marvin Estrera from the Tazmanian Devils, and Ambassadress, Vanessa “Peggy” Quirante from the Wombat Silencers.

VBP - Foam Party. It's a wrap!

VBP – Foam Party. It’s a wrap!

Ended the event with an awesome foam party!