Use Upward Feedback to Learn From Your Employees

Source: Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders

The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from an article by Rita Keller.

Some firms still train new hires the way Baby Boomers were trained. It went something like this: A Baby Boomer joined a CPA firm in the late 70s or in the 80s. On the second or third day a partner walked up to his or her desk, dropped a thick, legal size on the desk and casually said, “Follow what's in this file and do what we did last year.”

Funny thing is, the Baby Boomers did just that and basically learned from trial and error. Maybe I should describe it as “try to do the work, receive extensive review notes addressing all your errors, and then try again.” Repeat, repeat, repeat.

What has evolved is that we have partners and managers who grew up in public accounting this way and now they are attempting to manage Millennials who learn differently, think differently, and respond differently.

I know what you are thinking: “Partners are not going to change.” I disagree! People can change their behavior if they want to. But owners and managers can't improve their performance without feedback, information, and honesty.

What can you do about this? Find out what your people think. Now is the perfect time to do an upward feedback evaluation survey. Equip your partners and managers with data they can use to improve their performance and show the team members they really do listen.

For the complete article, read “What Are They Really Thinking?”

From Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders, the newsletter of Rita Keller, president of Keller Advisors, LLC, [email protected].