Build a Better Career Path: Your Future Depends on How Well You Cultivate Your Staff
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY * Small practices have to do more to attract and retain the talent they need to handle client services, work toward succession, increase firm value and effectively compete with larger firms. How employees are treated is as important to securing their loyalty as salary. * Attractive firms offer a well-managed, supportive environment, career growth potential, challenging and exciting work and work-life balance options such as flexible and part-time schedules and work-at-home programs. Technology makes the efficiency of such arrangements better than ever. * Staff want to know the firm's direction and that partners have an interest in their future. Employees who get career-development support stay longer and perform better. Firms should have staff list their goals and what they consider the best use of their talents. To the extent possible management should implement staff CPE and other development requests. * Using competency models in staff training helps staff clarify what they need to learn and provides an eligibility benchmark for promotions and pay raises. Employees formulate annual goals and objectives linked to areas such as technical competence, managerial and supervisory abilities, practice development and marketing skills, client service and retention and engagement profitability. * Many small firms devote more time, training and resources to getting clients than to recruiting and retaining staff. Some firms don't yet understand that developing "human capital" is, in fact, working on the firm's growth and succession planning. ********** The staff shortage in the accounting profession is at an all-time high, and no relief is in sight. Even though national enrollment in undergraduate accounting programs has been going up--about 10% a year in the past two years--competition for professional staff among firms of all sizes has never been more intense. New hires generally last less than two years, and small firms lose about a tenth of their workforce annually One New York recruiter says he has a standing order for 300 staff people from a single Big 4 firm alone. Other recruiters acknowledge they no longer even try to get accountants for small CPA firms. Here are some ideas small firms can use to develop a reputation as a great place to work, strengthen staff-partner relationships and grow and plan for succession. JOB SATISFACTION To attract and keep their fair share of professionals, small practices are going to have to do more. With less to spend on human resources programs than big firms, they still have an advantage--they can be more flexible in the actions they take to encourage employee satisfaction. Frame the issue for your workplace by answering a few pointed questions. How can your firm * Attract and retain the talent it needs to support client services? * Build a succession plan to ensure the firm stays independent? * Add services to increase its value? * Effectively compete with larger firms? Some answers will be obvious. For example, firms that are attractive to staff offer * A well-managed, supportive and prosperous work environment. * Ongoing professional development. * Career growth potential. * Challenging and exciting work. Of course, success is in the details, and those flow from your values and choices. TOUT GOOD POINTS IN WORD AND DEED Variety of clients and specialties inspired the career choice of the CPAs interviewed for this article. Connect with workers who haven't yet taken the Uniform CPA Examination by letting them know what aspects of the profession you find satisfying. "I thought becoming a partner in a CPA firm would provide a good income, security for my family and dialogue with many different people--and it has," says Steven Wolpow, CPA, managing partner of Nussbaum Yates and Wolpow PC, a six-partner, 23-CPA firm in Melville, N. …