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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
• 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.”

Not only does the secondee learn international accounting practices, new ideas and best practices from other firms, they also grow personally. According to one participant, “Many of the individuals I met during the secondment had a much different view on life than the ‘average American’ – they all seemed to make every available opportunity to travel or experience something new. Many Americans discuss 'back-packing' through Europe, taking long holidays, moving to foreign cultures, etc., but rarely make good on these thoughts. Most of the people I met during this experience had the same thoughts but followed through on them and had incredible stories and experiences to share.”

Not only does the experience grow and enrich the team members of RubinBrown and the firm, but RubinBrown secondees also are ambassadors to the world. One of our recent secondees remarked, “I gained an appreciation for the reach of RubinBrown. Those we visited know about St. Louis and our culture through RubinBrown by knowing team members from RubinBrown even if they never travel to St. Louis. Those things that we define as St. Louis or KC, like the Rams or the Chiefs, are little known in foreign lands. It is RubinBrown that is St. Louis and KC to them.”

RubinBrown is an active participant within the secondment program of Baker Tilly International because we focus on building talented professionals to provide services to our clients doing business in a growing global economy.