Vol. 8 No. 4, April 2016
The Leadership Forum is a panel of the most prominent thought leaders in the profession. This month we asked two questions and asked them to respond to the questions dealing with CPA firm management and leadership.
This month's question was:
What are the most innovative things firms are doing these days to make their firm a fantastic place to work that retains and develops people?
Consultants and Other Prominent Observers
| L. Gary Boomer | Boomer Consulting, Inc. | www.boomer.com [email protected] |
| Firms are finally leveraging technology to enable end users (employees) the capability to do their jobs in less time and reduce administrative tasks. Some of the best examples are mobile expense reporting and reimbursement, data downloads from clients and the automatic building of work papers and the use of software to manage client acceptance and independence. These applications are all Cloud based and integrate nicely.
Firms are also conducting process reviews (Lean Six Sigma) in order to eliminate loops and improve cycle time in their workflow. The new processes leverage the technology. Some of the most important areas are tax return preparation, audit, advisory services, and billing and collecting. Improvements in workflow and the leveraging of technology increases the firm's capacity as well as attracts and retains quality personnel. These process improvements also increase cash flow and profitability. Planning X People X Processes + Technology is the formula for the successful and future ready firm. The distinguishing characteristics of innovative firms are great leadership in both firm management and technology along with a culture that isn't afraid to fail. These firms tend to think differently. Rather than think linear and local, innovative firms think exponential and global. The convergence of technologies and the law of accelerating returns is a disruptive force. Processing power, bandwidth and storage are increasing at the speed of Moore's Law. Change is not enough. The profession must transform in order to remain a business leader and relevant. Playing above the line and offering Advisory Services that are performance and strategic based are key to maintaining margins and attracting talent and clients. Innovation requires hindsight, insight and foresight. It happens when you bring people together from different disciplines (diversity) and identifying big problems. Some of the leading firms are now designating personnel to manage innovation. A few have even named a Chief Innovation Officer, who seeks the best ideas (internal and external), prioritizes them, protects the innovator until they can make it happen and scale the idea, provides funding and eliminates or reduces internal competition. Most innovation starts as a bad idea in the eyes of those who desire status quo. |
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| William Carlino | Transition Advisors LLC | www.transitionadvisors.com [email protected] |
| Basically empowering their people from the onboarding process. Getting them involved with strategies and especially client interaction. Basically firms need to train their people so they can leave, but treat them well enough so that they will stay. | ||
| Marc Rosenberg | The Rosenberg Associates | www.rosenbergassoc.com [email protected] |
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| Rick Telberg | CPA Trendlines Research | www.cpatrendlines.com .com |
| Ii isn't about money. In a CPA Trendlines survey of 2,076 CPAs in public accounting, we found the single most important factor among satisfied staffers is that "management supports training in soft skills."
By our calculation, 32% of staffers at firms that fail to offer soft-skills training are currently actively seeking new employment. At firms that do, indeed, offer soft-skills training, only 2% of staffers are at risk. More findings from the research are available free of charge to participants. Join the survey; get the results, here: cpaclick.com/hiring16cpali. |
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