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Talent spotting

Practitioners' Diary is always a fun read and looking at the numbers, it is one of the most popular items on AccountingWeb. No surprise there. Here's a real live, walking, talking accountant in practice feeding back to the readership all the things we know about but in a way that has the ring of truth. (Aspiring practice bloggers take note.)

 

What caught my eye was his lament about replacing a secretary. He says:

 

"Had an email this morning from   our new secretary to say sorry but the job wasn't demanding enough for her, so   she was quitting. Just what I needed. "

Two things attracted me to this:

1. Firing the boss by email...talk about revenge of the techno-generation. I   wonder if the email was sent from a Blackberry?
 
2. The requirements for attracting talent are rising almost daily. It's not   enough to offer a competitive pay packet. Today, candidates are as likely to   want to know what you're plans are to innovate. They're interviewing you at a   time when real talent is short in supply. If you want to be the best, then   hiring the best isn't an option. It's what gives Microsoft bosses sleepless   nights while theiur talent gets pulled to Google.

Wha'ts your policy on bringing in the brightest young things you can find? Afraid they might be better than you? Fear not. It's the skill of great leaders to surround themselves with people who are better than they.

Technorati Tags : talent_hunting, HR, staffing_problems

 

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Quote of the day:

 

 "Let’s face it: Good management is, roughly, 30% common sense, 30% analytical acumen, 30% personal charm, 8% ruthlessness and 2% specialized knowledge. You're not going to get management education on the right track unless you're willing to be honest about what management is."

From How Ivory Is Your Tower, Rough Type, May 3, 2005

Nick Carr, management and IT contrarian, former editor: Harvard Business Review  

That puts most partners I know up the creek without a paddle.

Technorati Tags : Nicholas Carr

Bridging the departmental divide

The professional practices I speak with are usually organised along functional lines - audit, tax and so on. Rarely do I find practices specifically aligned to industry specific client groups. Where this happens, partners are usually the 'collection point' for industry expertise. From a communications perspective, that's a real problem.

When people work in functional silos, they become highly territorial. Their perspective narrows. That's necessary for the development of expertise but it doesn't help client and internal relationships. This is particularly problematic when firms are geographically spread. Some staff may never meet each other and so lose the opportunity to share experience. Permanent file notes help but they don't provide a collective flavour of how common client group issues impact results for instance.

Sedgwick Claims Management  in the US has found the start of an answer to this through internal podcasting. Each week they create a minute podcast that's available to every employee. The results are staggering. They are discovering many things they didn't know about their employees and customers. It's a global first but one where there are  great lessons to be drawn.

Shel Holtz interviewed the leaders of this project and his podcast can be found by clicking the podcast icon at the top of this post.  I thoroughly recommend investing the 25 minutes the podcast takes. It is a fascinating and forthright insight you rarely come across. If you don't have the time, Shel's excellent show notes can be used to access different parts of the conversation.

The Welsh don't like it

According to Bruce Lawson FCA of the Welsh Members' against Consolidation, a significant number of its members are against the folding in of CIPFA into the ICAEW. This is despite a letter from the Big Four to Accountancy Age, claiming they are raving for it to happen. According to Kevin Reed:

"In a letter to Accountancy Age, 15 leading players in the profession, including Big Four bosses John Connolly, Nick Land, Kieran Poynter and Mike Rake all backed the merger. "

This is on top of the fact that Scottish, New Zealand and Indian  members have voiced objections to the proposed name of the merged body.

This issue isn't going away. The Welsh bring up similar points to Ken but question what's happening in the Institute's finance office.

Whatever your stance, this is generating a fair amount of disquiet. If the future of the profession matters to you, don't be part of the silent majority. Vote.
Hat tip to Ken Frost

CIPFA and ICAEW merger

I found this directory of posts covering CIPFA. Interestingly, the most recent entries refer to the proposed merger with ICAEW. Good reading for those who are passionate about their status as Chartered Accountants.

Document management for free?

Can practice document management be achieved for free? Almost certainly the answer is 'no' but I do think that creative use of blog and wiki technology delivers a more productive and effective environment. Gilbane consultants agrees, although he takes the 'collaboration' argument as one where this technology is a winner.

A case study reference by James Governor implies the Lotus Notes platform is under threat. I know James well and he's a smart cookie. I also know that Notes is used extensively in the profession. For the smaller practice, say up to 5 partners and 50 staff, it may be possible to effectively 'join' wiki and blog technology to get most of what you need. By which I mean around 85%. If that's enough then maybe you don't have to shell out on a dedicated DM solution. Maybe you could save a LOT of money using this technology.

But then you shouldn't be looking only at 'documents' in the sense of PDF versions of paper documents. You should instead be looking at 'content' to include any form of digitised asset.

Want to get organized?

We all do projects. Whether it's organising the audit team, create new tax guidance, create new companies or partnerships or arrange the annual holiday calendar. They all have elements that make them projects.

Here's a piece of project management software as a service you can try for free from the extremely smart people at 37Signals. You don't need to deploy it on your servers; it's available to anyone with an internet connection and a browser. That's what makes trying these collaborative products so much fun. You don't incur any trial costs. Do take the product tour. Oh yes - they've thought of professional accountants.

Simon Crompton - MYOB

I hope you'll see how this stuff works when I explain this offline conversation. A firm told me they'd looked at Singleview about 18 months ago but hadn't bought. They are now considering their document management strategy.

This prompted me to call Simon Crompton. He's GM of MYOBs professional practice division Solution 6. I've known Simon 20 years - I bought the old Finax product back in the 80s and used it through to when I retired. A great product.

We talked about Singleview, their document management solution and how it's suddenly become a hot product in the wake of increased emphasis on compliance. I talked about the need for practises to get closer to clients and Simon came back discussing ways of pulling information into client folders that might be relevant to their affairs and how that might be used.

And then I thought about this. For document management to be useful, it has to have intelligence. It's not enough to say we saved space - although that's a valuable benefit. What I want from DM is an intelligent way to manage information. Singleview has the means to create a categorised, searchable knowledge base into which you can dump all manner of information. I haven't reviewed it - yet - but I can say that's not enough. You need to collate and access key information about common client groups. Here's some questions.

• How are you going to structure the knowledge base to achieve that?
• How, on the basis of that information are you going to detect 'at risk' clients?
• How are you going to communicate lessons learned to your clients?
• What can they contribute to your understanding of the client group?
• And do it all without having to use yet more applications?

As it happens, Singleview can be considered a practice portal. That's an interesting idea. You could for example think about dropping pages you create for your site or which you see from other sites into folders.  Hmm...now what could we do with those?

The legal and ethical angles

Some readers have raised the issue of legal traps for this medium. The only ones that might conceivably apply are defamation and libel. I cannot conceive of a situation where, with sensible policies in place, a professional firm should run any risk on this issue. If you have specific questions in that regard then please get in touch via dahowlett AT gmail DOT com.

The larger problem is the already cloudy ethical matter of client confidentiality. Clients are your greatest story tellers. So when they're successful and tell others, so are you. The purpose of using this medium is to stimulate discussion or get them to make contact with you over a specific issue. In doing so, clients are volunteering to make disclosures along the way.

I see nothing wrong in mentioning to clients that you have this type of website and that if they want to contribute then it is freely accessible at no cost to them and they can make any comments they wish or ask questions. You explain that comments are moderated for decency and may be edited if it clarifies a point. I'd also say that it's not wise to mention specific numbers in any posts that reflect personal experience. Provided that is explained to them in simple terms then I would suggest you evidence that with a simple form acknowledging the fact.

Does the fact they appear on your website then have ethical consequences? I believe you are inviting the client to participate in something that has very positive ethical outcomes. Say for instance you post the question of office facilities, asking whether readers think they need updating and what would they like to see. That's little more than a survey you might say. No, it may have that side effect but the main point is that clients are helping themselves and you to do what's best for them. A virtuous bi-lateral arrangement.

Another example might be raising year end tax considerations and then asking where they want to see you focus your efforts, giving examples like wealth planning, overseas investments, family taxation, personal matters, business investment - the list could be endless. Everyone's a winner in that scenario because the consensus will be telling you where you need to prioritise. Again, everyone wins. A sparkling argument.

Is there a consideration then for those same clients, having identified themselves, when they say great things about you like: "I saved a fortune with Jim's lot and it looks as though I'll still save thousands next year too?" Or how about the person show says: "Jim's firm have left me with a sense of peace. I know I don't have to worry about VAT and the pyroll when it's in their hands?" I really don't know. My gut feeling is it may have be seen as marginally negative at an ethical level but equally, it could be a real differentiator. And if the clients ike it, then hasn't the ethical matter been de facto answered?

I've not seen a single accounting firm that reveals its client case study's identity. Perhaps they've never thought of that. Perhaps they're shy. Perhaps they daren't! Now there's a thought.

What are your feelings or knowledge on this matter? This could help more people feel comfortable about 'coming to the party.'

I haven't got time

The next most common question I hear is "I haven't got time." Nonsense. Organised correctly with non-chargeable junior staff doing research legwork, you can have a post ready to roll in 20 minutes. You don't have to post every day though there may be occasions where you'd prefer to make additional updates.

But what if your site attracted an additional client per month and an additional amount of fee work from on existing client per month. Would that be worth your while? Or is that an exaggeration of the likely effectiveness of your site? Given what many say is virtually no traffic and little value on offer, anything coming through the door as a result of your website has got to be a bonus.

What if the posting sparked a conversation with a client that added to the store of your existing market knowledge? Wouldn't you want to know about that? Wouldn't you want to have that information tucked away for future reference.

At the end of the day, accountants are the archetypal knowledge workers. Legislation changes regularly. Bureaucracy seems to be never ending.  You have to keep up to date or you die. So what's wrong  with keeping up to date in a positive manner? One that has the potential to add considerable value to your practice both internally and externally?