Strong Training Programs Draw and Keep Talented Staff

Feature Article

07-22-05

CPA Practice Management Forum
Published Monthly by CCH Incorporated
June 2005

Ongoing training is a must for any accounting firm, if only to meet legal requirements. But firms that push beyond those requirements find their training programs not only keep staff well-informed and compliant, they help the firm serve clients better and attract talent. They also find that the face of training is changing somewhat, shaped by new ethics requirements, evolving technology and the challenge to build leaders and bring balance to professional lives.

Accounting firms need a keen focus on training if they are going to draw and retain quality staff eager to develop their careers, notes Terri Herren, HR director at Elliott Davis/Greenville, S.C. (200 staff, 31 shareholders; six offices)

“We see the development area as crucial and as a growing need,” Herren says. “A primary reason there’s a lot of turnover in our business is people feel they are not being developed. Firms really need to focus on development and look at what people need and what the firm needs.”

Staff development boosts performance and client service. “It’s not just the performance of the individual, but it’s the total performance you need for the firm,” Herren says, adding this is the reason Elliott Davis is beginning a coaching program in July. “I think accounting firms have been remiss. A lot of training directors don’t have the opportunity to work with people on development.”

At Argy Wiltse & Robinson/McLean, Va. (110 staff, 14 partners; one office), training primarily falls into the categories of tax, audit and general management and is largely geared toward better serving clients.

“We try to ascertain if clients have any special needs. It’s more matter of keeping up with changing legislation, tax bills or Sarbanes Oxley,” says Wally Owings, training coordinator at AW&R. We do a lot of work with government contractors, so we have to keep up with changing regulations and our clients expect us to know what those changes are.”

Gayle Noakes, chief learning officer at LarsonAllen/Minneapolis, Minn. (800 staff, 160 principals; eight offices, seven client- service centers), agrees. “What we provide to our clients is knowledge,” she says. “It’s critical that in an organization where you’re providing knowledge, you need to be well-trained and up-to- date. We need to enhance our own behaviors and our own skills and put those things together for our clients.”

Some firms even invite clients to training sessions. This is the case at Argy, Wiltse & Robinson and at Habif, Arogeti & Wynne/Atlanta (180 staff, 25 partners; one location). “Clients are welcome to come; they sit right next to our staff,” says Linda Steele, training director at HA&W.

Dedicated trainers

Increasingly, firms are dedicating staff positions to training. For example, Owings’ position at Argy, Wiltse & Robinson is new. “I’ve taken on the education coordination role in the last six months or so,” he says. “That’s been in response to the growth of our firm. We’ve reached a size where we think we need to have someone focus on training instead of handling it on an ad-hoc basis.”

Designating a training director helps ensure staff meet their legal requirements and the firm stays on track.

“From a compliance standpoint, you need someone to spearhead that and make sure we have the resources available for people to meet the compliance requirements,” says Kim Bayne, director of training at Elliott Davis.

With more than 800 employees, LarsonAllen has seven people on the learning staff. “I think the commitment started when they decided they wanted a chief learning officer a little over four years ago,” Noakes explains. “There had been excellent learning going on. But they wanted to raise the importance of learning within the organization and how it is valued at LarsonAllen.”

Steele says having dedicated training staff is a big plus when recruiting. “One of the things young people want out of a firm is continual training and learning,” she notes. “One of the things we’ve found that attracts them most is that we have an on-site trainer. That seems to be a selling point.”

Focused learning

Trainers at many firms say time constraints hamper learning efforts. But carefully selecting courses can ease the problem.

“The thing that hinders learning is that everybody is very busy,” Noakes says. “But I think one of the main things that counters that, and what we’ve experienced over the past couple years, is that we need to make sure the learning fi ts what people really need, so we don’t put people in the wrong level of learning. If people come to learning and they get a lot from it, then they’re more open to make it a priority.”

LarsonAllen, for example, conducts focus groups, talking to new staff about what they think they need to learn. In addition, training staff talk to firm supervisors to find out what they want new hires to know.

Subject matter diversifying

Many firms are opening up their field of courses, and not just to management and leadership topics. Often, the changes are driven by what employees want to learn as they develop professional and personal skills.

Elliott Davis uses many of its Lunch and Learn sessions to provide technical training. But like many firms, Elliott Davis also offers soft-skills training, particularly for less experienced staff. First-year professionals attend dinners where they learn dining and business etiquette. Less experienced staff also receive training in networking and dressing professionally. Bayne says second- year staff get an opportunity to ask questions and seek advice from shareholders in annual shareholder panel discussions, a learning session very popular with young staff. For experienced employees, Elliott Davis offers a career-training path, providing leadership and management skills and, for senior managers, business advisory skills.

The firm even hosts a leadership forum for college students, offering courses in time management, presentation skills and networking. “The young people need this because they hit the ground running in their interaction with clients,” says Herren. “We’re competing with national firms. We have to give the same level of training they give in management skills. We need to do this to be competitive.”

Phil Moore, MP at Porter Keadle Moore/Atlanta (52 staff, eight partners; one office), says his firm spends a good deal of training time on topics such as time management and managing multiple priorities. “They don’t really teach you that in school,” he notes.

At PKM, employee choice drives some subject matter.

“We took a trek several years ago down the broker/dealer path,” Moore says. “We had employees who wanted to get into that group and get training in that area. They oftentimes ask for help. Someone might say, ‘I want some SEC training because I have SEC clients.’”

The firm enlists the help of a corporate psychologist, Moore says. “We sometimes use him for assertiveness training, for somebody who’s too geared up who we need to teach to tone it down a little or somebody who’s too meek and mild and we need to teach them to be more assertive.”

At LarsonAllen, training topics keep evolving, says Noakes. “Newer staff are very hungry for the basics: how to apply the things they learned in school. As they progress in their career, they want to have a bigger business view, know how to delegate, know how to manage multiple priorities.” She adds, “We’re moving into paperless, so there’s a lot more technology training. And there are ethics courses that are required in some states.”

In addition to courses in tax, audit, computer skills and business writing, Habif, Arogeti & Wynne offers art classes, Spanish lessons and CPR training.

“They want everything,” Steele says of staff. “I do email etiquette. I do presentation skills. Because we do HUD audits, I have a speaker come in every year and talk about updates.”

The firm conducts three Lunch and Learn sessions each month: one on tax, one on audit and one on something entirely unrelated to the accounting industry, such as nutrition and weight loss. “I had Macy’s come in and hold a fashion show,” Steele says. “I had the cancer coalition come in and talk about the rising percentages of cancer.”

She attributes much of the training success to support from the firm’s leadership.

“Dan Simms, MP, said, ‘Let’s feed them at the Lunch and Learns.’ Before that, I didn’t have the budget to provide meals. I saw attendance for tax and audit Lunch and Learns double.”

One thing that seems certain: Neither the need for training nor the list of topics is shrinking. Steele says when she first began working in accounting firm training nine years ago, she was told she’d eventually run out of topics.

“That’s a myth,” she says. “Just when you think everyone knows what you want them to know, there’s something new to teach.”

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