Home topics workplace hr-and-staff Advice Opinion Staff Advice Offshore hiring turns mainstream Guest Author August 12, 2014 When CR Digital’s General Manager Stuart Woods arrives at work in Sydney’s Crows Nest, he turns on his computer and says good morning to two-thirds of his staff. Woods is one of a growing number of Australian small businesses that has staff based in Manila. He talks to them constantly during the day via Skype. Woods says that in many respects it is better than having them sitting in another room as he has constant access to them. CR Digital is not a big business but Woods has used staff in the Philippines to perform pivotal tasks in his business for almost six years. Woods was an early adopter of using more affordable staff offshore and using the savings to grow other divisions of his business. Just like any other organisation, the teams talk and work together regularly via Skype, using cloud-based systems such as Dropbox. All new employees are formally trained and the senior staff regularly visit the Manila-based team. CR Digital is just one of many Australian SMEs using resources overseas – something that is often regarded as accessible only to large businesses. As reported in Salmat’s recently released report, Beyond Borders , nearly 80% of businesses using offshore resources had retained or increased their local staff, with the average increase in their domestic workforce of more than 200%. In Australia and across the globe, offshore outsourcing of business processes and