How Competent Are Your People?

Source: Public Practice E-News

The following includes excerpts from the article by Bill Reeb and Dom Cingoranelli cited below.

In Part 4 of this series, Reeb discussed the high-level competency areas firms should focus on when evaluating people and introduced the concept of "relative importance" as a way to differentiate expectations regarding the same competency for various levels within a firm.

In Part 5, Reeb and Cingoranelli drill deeper into the competency model. They select one or two behaviors from each of the 15 competency areas and provide examples of prompting questions to give you a feel for how the model works and how expectations at various levels affect the questions. Some questions apply to multiple levels within a firm, while others are adapted to performance expectations for different levels.

Take job competence, for example. The authors define this as one's ability to carry out his or her basic job responsibilities. In other words, do you know what you're doing? Separate questions reflect different expectations for owners (that is, partners or shareholders) as opposed to other levels within a firm. For an owner, job competence means that he or she demonstrates excellent skill and experience in his or her technical area. Questions to ask include:

• Is this person perceived as an expert in the technical area for which he or she is responsible, whether it be audit and accounting, taxes, consulting, firm administration, marketing, or so on?
• If this person is a CEO or managing partner, does he or she demonstrate a well-rounded knowledge of all business disciplines?

For a senior accountant, job competence means that he or she demonstrates excellent skill and experience in his or her technical area at the senior level. Questions to ask include:

• Is this person able to function without a great deal of oversight and supervision?
• Does this person know what he or she doesn't know -- that is, recognize issues that call for expertise beyond his or her current level and bring in assistance as required?
• Can he or she use the firm's workpaper system and other firm technology platforms effectively?

Within each competency area, Reeb and Cingoranelli list one or more primary behaviors together with questions that can be used to explain or amplify these behaviors. This isn't the only way to build a competency model, but the authors find it to be an effective one.

For the complete article, click here and read "Management and Leadership in a CPA Firm -- Part 5."

From Public Practice E-News, Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants, April 2010, http://www.tscpa.org/.