The Sandwich Generation

Source: CPA Practice Management Forum

Experienced manager-level personnel in many firms are under-appreciated. Just like the new generation, they want fulfillment and growth, but instead are being pressured from the top and the bottom.

Over the past eight to 15 years, baby boomer partners—needing people to handle clients they brought in—hired people with good technical skills and little interest in marketing. They were often women and others looking for work/life balance. They work hard, make life easier for partners, and train and mentor new recruits—all while caring for aging parents and raising children.

One such person described her circumstances: She has absorbed the client load of a recently deceased partner, while younger staff seeking work/life balance are passing clients up to her. She is working 90 hours a week during tax season while the partners and lower level staff enjoy a better quality of life. But she is told she is not ready to be a partner. And the problem is aggravated by a lack of training of managers in how to manage.

What to do:

• Bring managers into meetings with outside speakers and consultants.
• Send managers, and perhaps important administrative people, to MAP conferences.
• Conduct round-table meetings and surveys to discover areas where training is needed.
• Document all processes in the firm. Make them easily available to all members of the firm.
• Create a document that details what partners are obligated to do for the firm and its people. The managing partner must have the will and the authority to enforce fulfillment of these obligations.

From CPA Practice Management Forum, CCH Incorporated, 800-449-8114, August 2007, p. 5. For the complete article click here.