Should Your Clients Give Employee Performance Reviews?

Source: CPA Practice Management Forum

In this article, consultant Scott H. Cytron suggests that an accounting firm's clients should be involved in the employee appraisal process. Doing so can provide valuable feedback to employees and the firm, and can strengthen relationships with clients.

Accounting firm employees have two audiences: An internal one and an external one (clients). To make the performance appraisal process more effective, you should begin by determining what clients think and then complement those results with what an employee's supervisor and other internal audience members think.

To incorporate client evaluations, you should get buy-in from both the HR department and management and obtain employees' agreement as well (though resistance is unlikely). To streamline the evaluation process, client surveys should include the same questions as the firm's internal performance review form (though questions that deal with strictly internal matters should be omitted). Don't send the survey to every client with whom an employee interacts. Rather, choose a representative sample of four or five clients.

Performance criteria depend on the level of the employee and the nature of his or her relationship with the client. Areas to cover might include client service, professional leadership, technical abilities, knowledge capital, communication, and engagement management.

The article includes a sample client survey for a low-level tax associate.

For the complete article, read “The Client-Accounting Firm Employee Evaluation: Good for Growth and Good for Retention.”

From CPA Practice Management Forum, CCH Incorporated, 800-449-8114, April 2011, p. 10.