How to Grow When Staff Resources are Scarce

Source: The CPA Journal

Barry Friedman, CEO of BizActions LLC (www.bizactions.com), gives this advice on closing the gap between new business opportunities and available staff resources:

• Terminate unprofitable clients. Do this by turning the responsibility over to a partner with the power to deal with ineffective partners who try to retain weak clients.
  • Fees will increase.
  • Staff morale will increase.
• Turn recruiting over to marketing people or to a partner with a good business development record.
  • The recruiting effort should be directed toward meeting goals. Goals might be defined in terms of number of interviews.
  • Bonuses should be paid for achieving those goals.
  • Develop an e-mail newsletter devoted to recruiting.
    • Set goals for number of e-mail addresses accumulated.
    • Include ex-employees, prior applicants, client CFOs, current staff, professors, college students, and other firms’ staff members on the list.
    • Place a newsletter subscription form on your Web site.
    • Add current staff biographies and photos to the newsletter.
    • Articles should concentrate on staff, clients, and how the firm differentiates itself.
• Recruit women who left firms that did not have work/life balance programs.
• Recruit CFOs who lost their jobs because of mergers.
• Advertise on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Use the best “key words.”
• Create a recruiting Web page.
• Analyze the work force in relation to the type of work.
  • Determine which jobs (such as tax returns) can be done from home.
  • Consider whether some work can be outsourced.
  • Find out to what degree flex time workers can properly service clients.
  • Determine what work can be performed by retirees. There have been many forced retirements from big firms and CFO job losses from mergers.

From The CPA Journal, A Publication of the New York State Society of CPAs, October 2006 (http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/toc/toc1006.htm). For the complete article, click on the following link: http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2006/1006/essentials/p54.htm.