The Annual Accounting Firm Performance Evaluation

Friday, July 6th, 2012

Have you completed the annual performance review process for the team inside your accounting firm?

Many firms I talk with do the annual information gathering ordeal at this time of year:

Gather information via surveys about performance in May/June.
Meet with the individual to relay the survey information and to establish official goals in June/July.
Meet one or two more times during the next 12 months to revisit the goals and check on progress.
Inform the individual of their annual pay increase as part of the annual meeting or hold-off for a couple of months to divulge the pay increase secret.

How do your people feel after this process? How do you and the other people in your firm conducting the performance evaluations feel after the process? How much importance does your firm honestly place on the information uncovered and communicated during this annual ritual?

I often find that in a very large number of CPA firms, everyone finds the whole affair not very worthwhile, somewhat irrelevant, and usually very boring. I still firmly believe that feedback is very important. It’s just a matter of how you do it and how OFTEN you do it.

It’s Friday, I thought I would provide you with some relevant week-end reading about what you can do to refresh and renew your performance feedback and goal setting system.

Are you using SMART goals? Here’s a blog post on a site called Uncommon Clarity titled, Why SMART Goals Aren’t So Smart.

The following are links to some of my posts about performance reviews. It’s summer reading time – that means getting up to speed on current trends in the CPA profession.

MAP Stats, Performance Evaluations and Being Mediocre

Is Your Accounting Firm Suffering From The Same Old thing?

I’m Saying It Again – Build On Your Strengths