Spring 2008 issue of Horizons

INTERNATIONAL NEWS Baker Tilly International

Joe Pimmel, RubinBrown St. Louis Office

RubinBrown: Building Talent from the Inside Out What? From the inside out? What do you mean? I mean internationally. RubinBrown is building our teammembers into stronger professionals every year through the Baker Tilly International Secondment Program. Through this innovative approach, RubinBrown sends two to four of its promising team members overseas to network firms across the globe. This past year we sent team members to Glasgow, Scotland, and Melbourne, Australia, to learn about local accounting practices, firm structure and processes, and the local culture. If you ask team members who have traveled abroad in this program, you will hear their excitement in “meeting new people, observing how other people do things, and reflecting on how things are going back home.”

What does the secondment program through Baker Tilly International offer its member firms? For the staff of

RubinBrown, the secondment program: Provides international work experience

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Provides personal and professional development Facilitates partnership through working with others and strengthens personal relationships within the network For RubinBrown, the secondment program: Assists with staff retention and motivation Aids in recruitment Provides international work experience for staff development Facilitates partnerships between firms and strengthens firm relationships in the network As our recent secondment program participants will tell those who ask, “Work was the important part of the experience.” A secondee (as secondment program participants are dubbed) works with firms that vary greatly in areas of expertise and local size. “We learn about other firms, their office size and the work environment (open work tables versus cubicles).” A secondee also learns about how other firms are managed and how they service their clients on a day-to-day basis. “Managers sit with the staff, which differs from RubinBrown.” For smaller firms, “They need paper more than we do. Our approach is moving to a paperless environment.” For secondees visiting larger network offices, they learn “how they (the firm) attempt to meet their objectives – how they handle a paperless audit and how they handle their work papers, audit sampling, scheduling and time off, internships and recruiting, and how they use technology to provide services to their clients.” • • • •

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