Rev Up Your Recruiting

Source: AICPA CPA Insider

The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from an article by Jennifer Wilson.

An estimated 78 million Baby Boomers will leave their firms, businesses, and organizations in the next 10 to 12 years. This exodus of talent will place extraordinary pressure on every U.S. organization's recruiting, training and development, performance management, and retention programs.

Is your firm ready? Consider these six strategies to help your firm compete:

• Ensure your HR leadership is top-notch and empowered. If your firm has more than 60 people, you should have a full-time HR manager in place. If your firm is smaller, ensure that a partner-level resource owns the HR function.
• Rev up your recruiting engines now. If your firm de-emphasized on-campus or experienced-hire recruiting in recent years, the time has come to reinvest in those areas – even if you're not actively hiring.
• Be competitive and fair. Make sure you are paying your people at or above market.
• Re-recruit your top team members. Focus on retaining your best and brightest by engaging them in meaningful discussions of their wants and needs and working with them to map a path within the firm that will meet those and the needs of the firm, too.
• Assess and enhance your firm's culture. How does it feel to work at your firm? Your firm's culture is a combination of factors, including the mindset and behavior of your leaders; the formal and informal stories you tell; your strategies, policies, processes, and programs; and more.
• Let your people be your guide. Form an employee advisory board (EAB) with a mix of generations, cultures, levels, and disciplines represented. Ask EAB members to solicit feedback from your people and bring forward ideas for change.

For the complete article, read “Six strategies to help you compete in an unprecedented recruiting cycle.”

From AICPA CPA Insider, March 11, 2013, http://www.CPA2biz.com.