Keep Your Best Employees Committed to Your Team
Source: AICPA CPA Insider
The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from an article by Jennifer Wilson.
According to preliminary data from the soon-to-be published 2011 PCPS Top Talent Survey, 61 percent of the profession's star performers are open to other options beyond their current position.
How can you retain your top talent when competitors come? One way is to simply re-recruit them!
Here are strategies on how to re-recruit your team members and keep them engaged:
- Recognize them. Consider having someone develop a digital book that includes everyone's picture, name and brief biography. No matter how many people are in your firm, work to know as many of them as possible by name and on sight. When you see them, say hello, address them by name and begin to get to know them.
- Talk to them. Managers and mentors should ensure that your best people are being touched regularly by e-mails, phone calls, and face-to-face meetings.
- Know them. Find out each person's driving motivators and learn what they most want to achieve in their career and in their personal life. Regularly ask what more the firm can do to support them in achieving their life's goals and then construct plans to do so.
- Invest in them. One of the highest compliments you can pay your employees is to spend time with them. Take them along on sales calls, to conferences, or to meetings with key clients or referral sources.
- Take risks with them. Offer your best and brightest the opportunity to take on projects that may be just beyond their current capacity. Allow them to make mistakes and struggle a little while they grow into their new skill level.
For the complete article, read “Engage Your Staff.”
From AICPA CPA Insider, August 22, 2011, www.CPA2biz.com.