Aligning Performance With Firm Goals

Source: RedZone, Play of the Month

The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from an article contributed by Accountants Advisory Group.

In this very competitive marketplace, to be a more cohesive organization, a CPA firm needs to effectively align the performance and skills of its partners and staff with the firm's goals and objectives. This alignment process can be accomplished by setting and closely aligning individual partner and staff goals to the firm's overall short- and long-term strategy.

Areas a firm should address in developing partner and staff goals that are aligned with the firm's overall short- and long-term strategies include:

• Technical skills and expertise
• Practice development and marketing
• Niche or industry specialization
• Client engagement profitability and management
• Career development of partners and staff
• Client relationships and retention
• Leadership and management

In addition, firms should implement a performance management structure that:

• Details and communicates partner and staff performance criteria and expectations
• Clearly mandates accountability for performance criteria and goals
• Establishes a compensation structure that pays for performance

Successful firms have clearly defined and communicated values that bind their partners and staff through aligned goals and objectives. In these firms, achievement of individual goals is firmly rooted in their compensation structures, creating a strategically aligned performance-based culture.

For the complete article, read “Is Your Firm Out of Alignment?”

From RedZone, Play of the Month, Accountants Advisory Group, http://www.AccountantsAdvisory.com, April 2012.