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By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Staff: Managing Your #1 Asset

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” – Ken Blanchard

“Average players want to be left alone. Good players want to be coached. Great players want to be told the truth.” – Doc Rivers, NBA basketball coach

MORE: Training? CPE? They’re Not the Same | Six Tips for Setting Compensation | Staff Crave Advancement and Challenge | What Leadership Looks and Feels at CPA Firms | Eleven Things That Good Mentors Do | Give the Recognition Your Staff Needs | The Importance of Great Bosses | How Remote Work Is Impacting Accounting Firms | Make Work Flexibility Work for Everyone | Why Staff Leave CPA Firms … and How to Stop Them | How to Solve the Big Disconnect in Talent Management | What Relevance Means for Staffing in Accounting | How Accounting Staffing Has Changed
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This post is divided into two sections:

• The progressive view of providing performance feedback, which a minority of firms today practice. Whenever something new to the field of practice management appears in a major way, many firms are slow to embrace it. Examples: Proactive selling, going paperless, adopting the cloud and managing a CPA firm like a real business.
• The traditional view of providing performance feedback, which a majority of firms still practice today. If asked why the traditional practice continues, partners often respond, “That’s the way we’ve always done it. It ain’t perfect, but we are reasonably satisfied with it.”

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The three types of training needed and 21 best practices for providing it.

By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Staff: Managing Your #1 Asset

“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with an education.” – Mark Twain

MORE: Six Tips for Setting Compensation | Staff Crave Advancement and Challenge | What Leadership Looks and Feels at CPA Firms | Eleven Things That Good Mentors Do | Give the Recognition Your Staff Needs | The Importance of Great Bosses | How Remote Work Is Impacting Accounting Firms | Make Work Flexibility Work for Everyone | Why Staff Leave CPA Firms … and How to Stop Them | How to Solve the Big Disconnect in Talent Management | What Relevance Means for Staffing in Accounting | How Accounting Staffing Has Changed
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

 

We cringe when CPAs use “training” and “CPE” synonymously.

• CPE coursework is often reactive, taken to maintain a CPA license. It may or may not educate. It may or may not be the type of education an individual needs. Many CPAs look upon CPE as a nuisance that is necessary to comply with professional regulations. The smaller the firm and the older the CPA, the more likely this is the case.
• Training is primarily proactive, undertaken voluntarily to expand a person’s knowledge, performance and capabilities. The training aligns with what the person needs to do the job and provide value to the firm and its clients.

Ideally, the training identified as needed also qualifies as CPE.
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Plus 17 extraordinary benefits to consider offering.

By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Staff: Managing Your #1 Asset

“If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it, you almost don’t have to manage them.” – Jack Welch

“Pay your people the least possible and you’ll get from them the same.” – Malcolm Forbes

Every CPA industry survey we’ve seen for decades shows that compensation is either No. 1 in importance to staff or close to it.

MORE: Staff Crave Advancement and Challenge | What Leadership Looks and Feels at CPA Firms | Eleven Things That Good Mentors Do | Give the Recognition Your Staff Needs | The Importance of Great Bosses | How Remote Work Is Impacting Accounting Firms | Make Work Flexibility Work for Everyone | Why Staff Leave CPA Firms … and How to Stop Them | How to Solve the Big Disconnect in Talent Management | What Relevance Means for Staffing in Accounting | How Accounting Staffing Has Changed
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Our feeling is that compensation is the ante to enter or stay in the game. Put another way, according to Jeremy Wortman:

If college graduates are looking for their first job, or if a young person with a little experience is job hunting, compensation is huge. If a person has two offers, one for $60,000 and the other for $65,000, the higher offer will get the person almost every time. But if the offers are $500 apart and the person likes the firm offering the lower salary better, it’s likely that the lower-paying firm will get the nod.
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Do your people know what it takes to get ahead?

By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Staff: Managing Your #1 Asset

The CPA firm mergers and acquisitions company ProHorizons has surveyed thousands of staff on what they want most from their jobs. Here are excerpts from their survey results:

MORE: What Leadership Looks and Feels at CPA Firms | Eleven Things That Good Mentors Do | Give the Recognition Your Staff Needs | The Importance of Great Bosses | How Remote Work Is Impacting Accounting Firms | Make Work Flexibility Work for Everyone | Why Staff Leave CPA Firms … and How to Stop Them | How to Solve the Big Disconnect in Talent Management | What Relevance Means for Staffing in Accounting | How Accounting Staffing Has Changed
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Opportunities for Growth and Development

One of the most common reasons people leave their jobs is because they don’t see potential for future growth. Staff want to be in a position where they are constantly growing and improving instead of just staying stagnant. The best CPA firms encourage that growth by providing opportunities for career and personal development.
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Thirty ways that firms are developing staff into partners.

By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Staff: Managing Your #1 Asset

“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” – Jack Welch

“Good employees make mistakes. Great leaders let them.” – Anonymous

We are probably the millionth people to form a list of important leadership qualities, but we want to share what we have learned from working with CPA firms for over 20 years.

MORE: Eleven Things That Good Mentors Do | Give the Recognition Your Staff Needs | The Importance of Great Bosses | How Remote Work Is Impacting Accounting Firms | Make Work Flexibility Work for Everyone | Why Staff Leave CPA Firms … and How to Stop Them | How to Solve the Big Disconnect in Talent Management | What Relevance Means for Staffing in Accounting | How Accounting Staffing Has Changed
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

 

Many of these traits are geared to partners and firm management, but many apply to staff as well. READ MORE →