Archive for the ‘performance evaluations’ Category
Friday, May 20th, 2011
It’s that time of year again for many CPA firms. Time for annual performance appraisals. I’ve talked to a couple of firms just this week about this topic.
Even in the most disciplined of firms, firms that have well-documented performance management systems, the annual review can often be viewed by both reviewers and reviewees as painful, boring, dreaded and even worthless.
Just a few quick tidbits of information this morning to help you manage this big, annual project that usually monopolizes a lot of time from a lot of people.
From all of my conversations and interactions with firms, I hear a lot about Halogen eAppraisal. Many CPA firms use it and like. Follow the link to learn more.
Here are links to some of my older blog posts that deal with performance evaluations:
Is No Performance Review an Improvement Over What You Do Now?
Everybody Gets A Raise in Pay
Performance Review Pitfalls
Streamlined, Digital Performance Evaluations – Peterson Sullivan
Don’t forget about upward performance feedback for your partners/owners. Look under Categories on the right side of this blog for Performance Evaluations to find more on this topic.
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I've got a theory that if you give 100 percent all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end.
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Larry Bird
Friday, March 18th, 2011
As you prepare for your management retreat this year, are you having your team grade you on your performance? Is a survey on your performance part of your firms regular feedback system?
On a scale of one to seven, with seven being outstanding how do you think you would rank? Often leaders are expecting a 6 or 7 and they are very surprised to receive a 3 or 4!
Honestly, I like to see a firms culture where upward, anonymous surveys are not necessary because leaders are continually asking for honest feedback, verbally, and giving honest, career-building feedback almost every day. However, I find that this is not usually the case. I am sad to report that I often find team members hesitate to be honest because they have some fear of retaliation
If you ask for feedback and receive some unfavorable ratings, it should not come as a surprise to you. Could some of your comments sound like these?
- Bill needs to be more available.
- Joe needs to make more timely decisions.
- Sharon needs to be more clear and direct with her direct reports.
- Mary seems to reward mediocrity.
- Eric is always too busy and doesn’t seem to have time to give us feedback.
- Sam’s challenge is being able to really hold people accountable.
- Barry needs to be able to use the firms technology better.
- Firm meetings are a big waste of time. We try to cover too much too slowly.
Of course, there are always a lot of positives, too. And, even with the negatives, the main point is that feedback is needed and should be acknowledged, discussed with the team and some action steps put in place. As leaders, once you ask for and receive your team’s feedback you need to visibly demonstrate that you take their feedback seriously and that you are making progress.
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Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town.
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George Carlin
Monday, March 14th, 2011
Sure it is a very busy time inside CPA firms right now. However, never lose sight of the fact that to move ahead in your career, you MUST have feedback.
You are already a leader in your firm, because leadership is action, not position. What do I mean by that? If you are setting a good example, if you have a positive attitude, if you remain focused on your personal goals, if you surround yourself with the positive people in your firm and steer clear of the whiners, you are a leader.
Some of the most effective leaders in CPA firms are the Directors of First Impressions (receptionists). They smile most of the time, greet clients and staff enthusiastically and genuinely and perform their role to the best of their ability.
Okay, you can be positive and friendly most of the time, but what other trait is a must as you build your career as a CPA? In order to continually improve and become a super star, you must receive accurate feedback. Feedback is the art of collecting insight from others and applying it to your personal behavior.
Most CPA firms have a process already established to provide feedback – downward, upward and peer-to-peer. However, even though the firm has the systems, timely, accurate feedback seems to be a struggle and almost a lost art inside many firms. If you would like a sample of an After-the Engagement feedback form, you can download one from my Dropbox.
If feedback is lacking in your firm, it is up to you to do something about it.
If you want feedback – ask for it. More experienced CPAs usually offer newer accountants lots of feedback in the beginning. However, as time goes on, if you don’t welcome feedback, those around you will stop giving it.
Feedback that is timely helps the most. If you wait to ask or if it is given too long after-the-fact it is almost meaningless. It is also so much easier to give and receive honest feedback if it is done immediately, on the spot.
Seek feedback from those closest to you. The best advice comes from those closest to you on a daily basis. Be sure to ask the manager or partner on your current engagements, ask your peers who have worked on client engagements with you and ask the administrative people in your firm who interact with you daily.
Don’t get defensive. Sometimes the feedback you receive might not be completely accurate. Contemplate the positive, the negative and the off-target feedback with grace and style.
Keep the communication and feedback alive and healthy inside your firm by asking and giving timely feedback. Experienced, long-time CPAs need it as much as beginning accountants. Administrative team members need it, managing partners need it, firm administrators need it, marketing directors need it and it is the responsibility of all these same people to give feedback generously.
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Feedback is the breakfast of champions.
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Ken Blanchard
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
Most firm have a process for giving their team members performance feedback.
Many of these firms suffer from two pitfalls:
They fail to make the most of this valuable opportunity to communicate directly, honestly, and individually, with team members who are “flying” and team members who are “falling.”
They talk about performance too infrequently.
Read more about the road to avoidance and missing out on daily opportunities in my February 22 article in the AICPA CPA Insider. Follow this AICPA link to sign-up for their free e-newsletters.
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You haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky.
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Amelia Earhart
Thursday, November 11th, 2010
Do you give pay increases to poor performers? I bet you do. Sure, it might be fairly conservative but probably not that far off from what your better performers receive.
CPA firms tend to ask around (firms in other cities and states, usually in their CPA firm association) and check various surveys for the CPA profession before they give annual pay increases.
For a while (pre-2000 and up through 2007) firms were giving BIG increases to their seniors – - – because their competitors wanted them. A senior could walk down the street and automatically get a $5,000-$10,000 pay increase. So, an annual increase of 10-15% kept them at the firm. The rest of the team received an average of 5-7%.
Those times are gone. Last year, many firms gave no increases and even reduced some managers’ pay. Of course, partners took a hit, too. Now, things are getting some better and conservative increases are beginning to happen.
Be careful to not fall into the same “everybody gets X% trap.” When shouldn’t raises be a given?
I feature this topic in my November newsletter. Did you receive a copy on Wednesday? If not, click here to read this month’s issue and visit my website to sign-up for future issues.
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Waste your money and you're only out of money, but waste your time and you've lost a part of your life.
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Michael LeBoeuf
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
Were they painful? Were they productive?
Last November I did a post titled, Is No Performance Review An Improvement Over What You Do Now? Another one, for your reference is Streamlined, Digital Performance Evaluations – Halogen featuring Andrea Ballard of Peterson Sullivan.
Perhaps you have read the recent article in CCH Practice Management Forum by Valant and Hustad titled, Performance Reviews: Moving from Painful to Productive? The authors cite a book by Culbert and Rout, Get Rid of the Performance Review! How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing – - and Focus on What Really Matters. Culbert and Rout explain that reviewing performance is important, but that employees deserve evaluations they can trust, not reviews cloaked in pretense and procedure that make all those involved uncomfortable.
I find that all this is very real inside CPA firms. Many managers/partners are just burned out with going through the annual process and the recipients have learned that no real, concrete, constructive actions result from the process.
The authors of the article confirm my feelings….. the managers (in a CPA firm the managers and partners) are not doing a very good job.
Nothing is sadder than to see someone… who thought they had been performing acceptably, discover they are suddenly unemployed when all they had done was repeat the same behavior and performance that had been acceptable in the past. – - Does this quote from the article sound like something that might happen in your firm?
Here are the four practical steps offered by Valant and Hustad (be sure to read the entire article if you are a subscriber):
- Managers must clearly state and quantify their expectations.
- Commitment must be gained from each direct report to meet the manager’s expectations.
- Performance reviews must be conducted quarterly, allowing the manager to become the coach, not the annual judge, jury and executioner.
- Compensation must be linked directly to performance.
Now is the time to set the stage for the coming performance year. Do you need to change/modify your performance evaluation system? If you need assistance or just need to brainstorm, give me a call or send an email.
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One important key to success is self confidence. An important key to self confidence is preparation.
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Arthur Ashe
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
During my many years in CPA firm management, we were always doing our best to continually improve the firms performance evaluation process. Until recent years, this usually meant that we would find a new and better form to use for staff, managers and the administrative team members and try to get the reviewers to summarize the information and communicate the results in as timely a manner as possible. It was never easy to make it easy!
For many years, I actually read EACH person’s reviews (usually six or seven evaluation forms on each person) then summarized the scoring and written comments for the partner/manager who would be conducting the review meeting. When you have 40 or 50 people in a firm, this is a HUGE task.
Then, thank goodness, we moved to a digital form, using Word, and summarizing became a game of cut & paste. Still very time consuming.
A few years back, my firm took the recommendation of Kathy Anthony of O’Sullivan Creel in Pensacola and researched and adopted Halogen Software e-Appraisal.
Recently, I was talking with Andrea Ballard of Peterson Sullivan, (Seattle, approx. 80 professionals). Andrea is the firms Director of Human Resources and she was telling me about their experience with Halogen. I thought you might find it interesting, especially if you are looking to update and improve your performance evaluation methods.
Andrea noted:
“We selected Halogen in December 2008. Up until that time we were doing everything manually. We sent a Word form to the raters and everyone typed-in their information and then I cut and pasted. It took a huge amount of time. We also didn’t feel like giving performance feedback only one time per year was very effective.
I looked at several options before I selected Halogen. It was the multi-rater feature for professional firms that sold me and I also like all of the available options for customization.
We didn’t roll-out the new software with the annual evaluations. Instead, we first used it for the after-the-engagement project evaluations so that our team members received immediate feedback.”
I know there are a lot of different products used by many of you in the CPA firm world. If you would like to share your story or have valuable advice for other HR Directors, firm administrators, or managing partners, please feel free to contact me.
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Our best thoughts come from others.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Friday, July 2nd, 2010
Many firms do their annual performance evaluations at this time of year. How are yours going? Have you moved to a completely paperless system? Have you adopted a system that gives your team members feedback on a trimester basis? Have you determined who is going to be promoted?
How does your marketing plan look for late summer and early fall? Are your team members (all of them) using personal marketing reports to track their activities. (I have sample forms if you want to see an example.) For partners and senior managers, it’s results but for all other team members it should be about lots of activity. It’s how they develop their skills.
How healthy is your culture? Are you having fun at your firm? Harvey McKay has a great column this week on how Fun and Work Go Hand In Hand. Take a minute to read it.
And finally for this Friday, a bit of dialogue that grabbed my attention as I was reading the novel (made into a recent movie which I haven’t seen) – Shudder Island. The dialogue follows – please insert “CPA firm” for the words “mental institution for the criminally insane.”
“Anything unusual happen?”
“Define unusual.”
“Excuse me?”
“This is a mental institution for the criminally insane. ”Usual” isn’t a big part of our day.”
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Prepare! The time will come when winter will ask what you were doing all summer.
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Henry Clay
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
The time is almost here. The time of year, when in a significant number of CPA firms, you begin the annual process of reviewing and appraising performance of your team members. Is this annual event dreaded in your firm?
This year I want you to rethink what climbing the career ladder means. Many of you haven’t even developed career ladders for your people and now it’s being replaced by something new and more logical for today’s worker.
Per Deloitte, we need to be building a Lattice Organization. I, personally, buy-in to this one. It simply makes sense. It will help CPA firm leaders deal with succession and the future potential of their firm, long-term.
The end of “normal” career paths and work patterns is upon us. Today a career is no longer a straight climb up the corporate ladder, but rather an undulating journey of climbs and lateral moves. The proverbial corporate ladder is evolving, right before our eyes, into a corporate lattice.
The broader term for this is Mass Career Customization. I talked about it back in February at the Boomer Human Capital & Learning Symposium and on this blog.
We often lose some of the best and brightest, young CPAs because they cannot meet our expectations of climbing the ladder. They are already building lattice-like careers by moving in and out of organizations. CPA firms can gain a significant competitive advantage by recognizing the reality that life as a CPA professional must have the flexibility to dial-up and dial-down.
I urge you to read this article, “Building a Lattice Organization” before you judge, counsel and set goals for your valuable team this summer.
Also, visit the MCC site. You can learn all about it and there is even an interactive exercise.
“But day in and day out, the most stimulating part of the work is being a member of a team of so many very bright, articulate and talented professionals.” – - Randy West
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
This time of year it is so important for you to be giving continual, on-going feedback to your entire team. It is all part of your performance management system. There are MANY parts to your performance system!
At the Boomer HCLS this week, I learned that several of the firms in attendance are using software to streamline and enhance their performance management system. Just FYI – it seems like most are using Halogen. Read more here…
Tracy White, Senior Director of Human Resources for Clark Nuber, presented a very informative break-out session on performance management. Tracy is so impressive and is always willing to share and help others navigate the CPA firm HR waters. Click on the Clark Nuber link and you will see Tracy in the picture – standing in the middle. That’s Dave Katri, CEO, sitting on the floor.
One of the joys of the Boomer HCLS this year was my chance to finally meet Tom Hood, CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs, face-to-face (we’ve met virtually several times). That’s Tom in the picture, above.
“You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.” – - Warren Buffett
