Work/Life Balance

Mentorship and Fast-Tracking Your Staff: One Firm’s Approach

By Kathryn L. Mendicki, CPA

A couple of years ago, our firm was approaching the busy season and had an obvious ‘missing level’ in our staff when it came to experience. We had several staff at the 2-3 year level, a few at the 3-4 year level, but none at the 4-5 year level. It didn’t look promising that we would be able to fill all of the gaps, so we determined that what we needed was to accelerate the growth of the people we had. Ideally, we wanted to accelerate each person’s track by 12 months in the next six months. We named this program our “Staff Development Program.”

The Staff Development Program

Under the Staff Development Program, each tax staff member is paired with a tax manager or tax director. The manager or director is responsible for setting meetings, focusing on the key development areas, and taking an active role in scheduling to try and get “appropriate” assignments scheduled for their staff development partner. Because the goal is to accelerate staff development, the program focuses on technical training, stretching assignments, client service, work habits, and career development areas.

Program Development

We have purposefully allowed the details, other than the key areas, to be determined by each staff development team. This allows flexibility and lets people focus on what they do best. In addition, everyone learns as we share best practices among the teams. Let’s go into some of the areas and ideas that were pursued.

Technical Training – To advance someone’s technical knowledge takes a commitment from both parties. We focused on getting the participants onto a technical reading distribution list; some teams even picked an article or case each month to discuss. Other teams focused on taking the time to thoroughly cover a subject that was part of a current project. Tangents are acceptable here as the goal is to learn. Staff is encouraged to come up with topics they would like to learn more about and to ask more questions during projects.
Stretching Assignments – If you want someone to function at a higher level, moving them to that level now is a great option. If you know that they will struggle and they know you are committed to helping and supporting them, it can be a beneficial team experience. You can’t throw them in the deep end without any life preserver but you can increase the expectation level. Ideas? Give the staff person a chance to review early in their career–it will make them a better preparer. Give them the outlines and put them in charge of planning the engagement. Take them to a client meeting and give them a specific topic they can cover with the client. Remember, the goal is to grow so success is important; support and coordination are imperative.
Client Service – In the tax area, it usually takes staff longer to get involved directly with clients. This is a very important part of their development so we wanted to encourage the managers and directors to be sure to include the staff whenever possible. Manager and directors are encouraged to take the staff to a meeting just so they can hear how they talk to and respond to the client; these are frequently the best learning tools the staff can access. We also encourage the staff to develop relationships with the client or client’s staff.
Work Habits – Here we focused on procedural training, how to develop budgets, review tax returns, and how to approach scheduling problems and set expectations. This area is more ‘touchy-feely’ but still very important if the staff is going to move into a higher role.
Career Development – Career development focuses not only on career path but also on development niches and specialties, as well as overall education. Mentoring as to what it takes to get to the next level is stressed here. Discussions as to Continuing Professional Education (CPE) programs and needs also are covered. A manager can also help by seeking out special projects and coordinating schedules if there is a specific technical or specialty area that the staff wants to pursue.

The Results

So how did it work? We were pleasantly surprised at how fast the staff did progress. It’s hard to measure the amount of acceleration but, clearly, everyone that participated did have increased knowledge and responsibilities. We still use the program today. After all, our best investment is our people so we want to be sure we are giving them every opportunity to succeed and be challenged.

Kathy Mendicki is a director with CBIZ Accounting, Tax & Advisory Services & shareholder with Mayer Hoffman McCann P.C. in Kansas City. She can be reached at kmendicki@cbiz.com.