Practical ideas, lessons learned and shared experiences for those in the world of CPA firm management, human resources, administration, marketing and technology.
The battle for top talent is really beginning to heat up for the CPA profession.
I hope your firm has many volunteers helping high school and college students realize the great opportunities available to them if they become a CPA.
If you are in Ohio, the state society has a fantastic program titled The Accounting Careers Awareness Program (ACAP-Ohio). It is an all-expenses paid, innovative career developmentprogram designed specifically for minority high school students. It is a week-long campus residency program at The Ohio State University, Fisher College of Business.
Check out this brief, informative video and if you are in Ohio, I hope you share it with your local high schools. If you are a CPA in another state, I hope your state society is doing something similar.
Tomorrow there is a great opportunity for you and/or your firm’s HR leader
Sandra Wiley of Boomer Consulting will be live on iShade between 1:00p and 3:00p Central on Thursday, February 2, 2012 to answer all of your questions relating to the HR issues inside your busy CPA firm.
Wiley will also share great information on the HR outlook for firms for 2012.
Just log-in to iShade on Thursday at the appointed time and go to the Practitioner to Practitioner Group and look for the Discussion Topic “Human Resources Q&A with Sandra Wiley.”
It’s a great opportunity for all of you dealing with HR inside CPA firms. If you read this and are not the HR leader in your firm, please forward this blog post to them.
People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - - that's why we recommend it daily.
Whenever there is a gathering of CPA firm managing partners, firm administrators or HR professionals, the question always comes up regarding ranges of compensation for professional staff in the public accounting arena.
Another thing on this topic. Firms are usually very secretive about staff salaries, yet we live in an age of getting any information you desire via the Internet and social media sources. I subscribe to the thought process that it is a good thing that firm team members know that top performers are getting paid more than mediocre performers. But, what goes along with that (and specific salaries do not have to be divulged) is that mediocre performers know they are “average” and they also are given clear expectations on how to become a “top” performer and thus, earn more. Not rocket science.
It's ironic that retailers and restaurants live or die on customer service, yet their employees have some of the lowest pay and worst benefits of any industry. That's one reason so many retail experiences are mediocre for the public.
Many CPA firms, in recent years, have moved their performance evaluation process into the digital world. One resource that many firms are now using is Halogen eAppraisal.
Halogen is a great resource for a lot of HR challenges and for HR education. I recently listened to a couple of short videos in a Halogen series called, HR’s Bold Thinkers Series: Practical Next Generation Talent Strategies.
Lizz Pellet, author of The Cultural Fit Factor, gives some great HR information in the following videos:
If you are a managing partner, firm administrator or the person responsible for HR inside your firm, I hope you take a few minutes to listen to the messages.
The talent shortage is real for the CPA profession – be sure your firm has a plan to find, hire, develop and retain the best and the brightest.
First of all, if you still haven’t signed-up for iShade – do it now.
Secondly, I want to thank Rob Nance, iShade Curator, for his recent blog posts titled, Pulse of The Profession: Conversations with Rita Keller, Part Iand Part II.
I hope, after you have signed up for iShade, you will read Rob’s blog posts.
Conversation should touch everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing.
Working with CPA firm leaders, I hear all kinds of stories – some great ones and some not-so-great ones.
When someone gives their notice, many firms will ask them to leave immediately, often because firm management believes the person will not act professionallywhile working out their notice. If you truly believe that about a team member working at your firm, why are they there in the first place?
Another scenario is when a rising star leaves, someone the firm has invested a lot of time and money into training and development. Thus, firm management is surprised, hurt, mad, disappointed and these mixed-emotions flare-up and the person is hurried out the door.
Here’s some advice I heard from a managing partner at a firm in New England that you might consider using when a good performer decides to leave:
We recently had one of our best employees leave the firm. She had been with us for nearly eight years and was continually moving up the ladder, doing a great job and the clients loved her. Although I hated to lose her, I met with her privately and had a conversation that “left the door open.” I wanted her to know that the firm appreciated her and benefited from her expertise over the years and I also wanted her to know that she had benefited greatly from our investment in her. I said to her: We served each other well.
I think that is a perfect description of the relationship between team members and the firms they work for. The team member gets the chance to learn, grow and gain skills for the future and the firm benefits from their hard work and dedication to the firm (and makes money via their work with clients).
“We served each other well” leaves the door open for the future and a returning employee who found out that the grass is NOT always greener brings a great message back to the entire team if they decide to return.
Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.
Jennifer Wilson, Tamera Loerzel and the team at Convergence are launching a new program designed to prepare up-and-comers to lead and manage their firms. It’s called the Transformational Leadership Program and the first session begins in January, 2012.
One of my continual and strong recommendations to CPA firm leaders is to invest in the success of their people. This is one area where you cannot be miserly.
I’m not talking about the required technical tax and audit CPE that CPAs must have, I’m talking about an investment in the success of the firm, as a whole, because the people who are expected to manage, lead, motivate, inspire and set the example know exactly how to do it.
I’m talking about your Managing Partner – Does he/she have have a coach or mentor? Does he/she attend leadership and advanced management training. Read my post about “leading professional service firms” from 2010 and investigate the program offered at Harvard.
I’m talking about your Firm Administrator and your Human Resources professional – Does he/she have a coach or mentor? Does he/she attend MAP conferences (more than one per year)? Has he/she had the opportunity to develop a network of other firm administrators to use for advice and ideas. The Association for Accounting Administration is a MUST professional organization for professionals managing CPA firms. The AICPA also offers a Human Capital Forumannually, where HR professionals can build a network of advisors.
Your marketing professional should be a member of AAM and attend the national conference. Your technology professional inside the firm should be active in the Boomer Technology Circles.
And…. your future leaders should be building their own network of “professionals managing accounting firms” via leadership training specifically directed at the public accounting profession. State societies, the AICPA and proven, experienced advisors to the profession are offering such programs.
Take action! – Investigate them now.
There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you are committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results.
Variety- I’m not talking about the American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in NYC in 1905 by Sime Silverman (right off of Wikipedia).
In public accounting, I’m talking about the work you offer your interns, new hires and even your experienced people. The huge national firms, the large regional firms and even some mid-size accounting firms hire people directly into their tax OR audit departments. However, the huge majority of the firms in the country are small to mid-size firms and they have an advantage. They can offer interns and others experience in both tax, audit and even bookkeeping, valuation, consulting, etc.
Many students will attest, they really do not know what they want to focus on when they graduate with their accounting degree and they appreciate the opportunity to learn “both sides of the house.” I have seen some of the top students accept offers with a smaller (non-national) firm because they could have more variety of learning opportunities during the first few years with a firm.
During my strategic/succession planning work with firms, I do a lot of staff surveys to find out what they REALLY like about the firm (and what they REALLY dislike). One of the “best” things about their firm is the variety of work.
Interns will be joining your firm soon to help out during the busiest time of year for most public accounting firms. Plan to give them a broad range of experience. They will be doing a lot of individual and small business tax preparation, but also be sure they are scheduled on a couple of “fieldwork jobs,” an audit or review where they can see what it is like to interact directly with clients and be part of an engagement team. Perhaps they can also do some number crunching for the valuation or litigation support team.
You might ask, “How productive can they actually be?” Maybe, not very but that is not the point. They are exploring their future and it is an extremely important mission. At my former firm, we actually beat-out the big firms for some of the top students because we offered variety.
True story – when I entered a CPA firm 30 years ago I thought to myself, “I’ll try this for a while but I’m sure it will be boring.” During all my years inside a firm and my years consulting with CPAs, I’ve never been bored one minute!
Variety is the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor.
I was reading Time magazine and noticed a short article under their “Briefing” section, titled: Getting Yours. Even in a down market, some jobs still command pay hikes.
Over-all wages have remained stagnant. Pay increased just 1.8% in the past year, about half as much as inflation. That may be changing, if you are one of the survivors, your employer doesn’t want to lose you. (I definitely think this applies to CPAs.)
A graph in the article shows professions with the biggest raises since the recession began. The fastest wage growth category? Tax preparers.
Just a heads-up for you. Be sure to take care of your best performers.
Did you ever notice that when you put the words 'The' and 'IRS' together, it spells THEIRS?
I like to believe I am a communicator and a connector for people working the the public accounting profession.
I realize that my clients, CPA firms and the people who lead them, are very busy taking care of their own clients and their own firms – so I try to take care of them.
One way I take care of clients and readers is, of course, via this blog and my monthly newsletter. Both are intended to trigger CPA firm leaders into action! Of course, clients get more personal contact and involvement from me – you should consider becoming one.
As for today’s topic – what other CPA firms are doing. I like to feature innovative, proactive firms on this blog and today is a great example.
I have known David King of Barfield, Murphy, Shank & Smith for many years and have admired his efforts in designing a workplace that is unique in public accounting.
Here’s an example – watch the career video on their website and listen to how two of their own team members describe the firm.
I’ve been nagging you for two years now on the importance of your website and this year it has become even more imperative that your site is cool.
Wiley will also share great information on the HR outlook for firms for 2012.
