Find Your Next Level
Let ConvergenceCoaching guide you to your next level of growth by learning more about our services. If there’s something you are wondering about that isn’t mentioned on our site, please contact us and we’ll discuss your needs.
We help CPA firms reach their performance and growth goals and lead their teams toward a shared vision. We’ve worked with countless leadership teams to anticipate the future, share CPA firm best practices and drive transformational change. Many firms share similar challenges and opportunities and yet your firm’s unique service lines and industry areas, talent and culture are what determines your firm’s best path to success.
Vision & Strategic Planning Retreats
We retained ConvergenceCoaching to facilitate our shareholder retreat where we focused on succession and the path-to-shareholder. Prior to the retreat, Jennifer Wilson and Tamera Loerzel invested a great deal of time and work in getting to know us – surveys, phone calls, etc. When Jennifer arrived for the retreat, she was so well prepared and versed on who we were. We really appreciated and valued the insight that she had to offer.
We then utilized ConvergenceCoaching’s services to conduct leadership and communication training to strengthen unity among the supervisors, managers and shareholders prior to busy season. Jennifer presented the information with a style that is direct and candid but not offensive. Everyone really grasped what she shared. Both engagements improved the teamwork within our leadership group and helped us to think about changes we can make in our strategies, processes and behaviors to grow our firm and ensure success well into the future.
Chief Administrative Officer, Kerkering, Barberio & Co.
Vision & Strategic Planning Retreats
Is your firm ready to spark innovation, anticipate the future and drive toward a new vision for your future? Or are you uncertain about the right initiatives to focus on in the next year or more? Does your partner team need to gain clarity, unity and accountability? Or maybe you’re at a turning point in your practice and you want to redefine your 5-year vision to re-energize your people and prepare for the changes ahead.
Whatever your objectives are, we facilitate retreats for firm leadership teams to address a variety of needs, including:
- Vision planning – anticipating the future and creating a differentiating 5-year vision plan to guide your firm’s decisions and annual goals
- Strategic planning – identifying your firm’s immediate and long-term priorities and creating specific strategies for the next year
- Unity and accountability – helping leadership teams gain unity, build trust and create transparency within their relationships so they can drive change to improve the firm
- Partner issues – understanding the firm’s current compensation, deferred compensation, governance and/or succession processes and facilitating a meeting to redesign your model to one that is attractive to both new and existing shareholders alike
What’s different about a ConvergenceCoaching-led retreat?
Our unique Mapping Your Success™ strategic planning process enables us to quickly gain an in-depth understanding of your organization and its leaders, involves various stakeholders and identifies the most important success factors to drive toward your goals. Whatever your focus, our process will uncover the areas of upside facing your firm and identify specific strategies to achieve your objectives.
Depending on the focus of your firm’s retreat, we typically deliver our findings and recommendations during an interactive on-site meeting or retreat with your leadership team where we’ll help you make important decisions, commit to necessary change and develop a strategic action plan for the future. We ensure that your firm has clear direction about what steps are happening next, and who is leading them, so that you can maintain your momentum long after the retreat has finished.
Ready to discuss your firm's goals? Contact us to schedule an exploratory call!
Succession Planning
I’m so happy to have worked with Jen Wilson and ConvergenceCoaching. She worked with my firm for many years before we joined Wipfli, and she was instrumental in helping my partners and I realize that the best exit strategy for our firm was an acquisition. She helped us make the changes we needed to better ourselves and our operations. ConvergenceCoaching was the best connection I ever made! Working closely with Jen for the four or five years helped me reach my potential as Managing Partner. The things she taught my team and me truly changed my life, and I am grateful.
Partner, Wipfli LLP
Succession Planning
It is no secret that our nation is graying and the need to plan for the succession of the approximately 80 million Baby Boomers cannot be delayed. However, the issue of succession planning is one that most firms underprepare for and hope for the retiree or transitioner to successfully handle on their own.
Failing to strategically prepare and communicate will leave your organization vulnerable, but we can help. At ConvergenceCoaching, we develop and execute a variety of succession planning strategies including:
- Rising star identification and development
- Successor selection, including your next CEO, Managing Partner, or key practice leaders
- Transition planning to help those retiring, including a majority owner and/or founder, hand off clients, referral sources, key staff relationships, and administration over time
- Learning programs to prepare both your transitioners and their successors
- Emergency transition when someone exits unexpectedly
- Communications strategies and action plans to help all stakeholders make the transition successfully
Managing transition is challenging, and it is important to address the needs of the up-and-comers while honoring retirees. This work involves much more than mechanical business processes and buy/sell strategies. It also takes balancing the diverse personalities, interests, and goals of those involved in the succession planning process so that their needs, and the needs of the organization, can be met.
At ConvergenceCoaching, we are privileged to work with those in transition and have a lot of experience managing succession to ensure a transformative outcome. Take the time to proactively plan for your firm’s future and you’ll ensure its continued success. Contact us for more information about our succession planning consulting and implementation services.
HR Consulting
We left our vision planning retreat ready to hire a high-level operations professional to support the partner group, but we weren’t sure how to find the right person. ConvergenceCoaching helped us craft a clear role description, outline key first-year goals, identify a pipeline of strong candidates, and create buy-in for the hire internally using proactive, targeted communication. ConvergenceCoaching’s support in the engagement was critical to us finding a candidate we could all be excited about.
Managing Principal, LattaHarris, LLP
HR Consulting
We work with firms to enhance their talent programs by providing strategic planning, coaching, consulting and learning programs in a variety of human resources areas. Consider engaging us for a wide-range of services designed to take your HR strategies to the next level and make your firm an inviting and engaging place to work, including:
HR Strategy and Planning
- Conducting an HR assessment and strategic planning
- Facilitating a leadership team meeting focused on improving culture and/or HR
- Designing, deploying and analyzing an employee engagement survey
- Facilitating your HR retreat
- Reviewing your HR plan
- Defining your HR team member roles
- Coaching and supporting your HR team members
Recruiting Strategy and Support
- Defining your HR recruiting story and why candidates should choose your firm
- Identifying your cultural values to help qualify candidates to ensure fit and maximize diversity
- Analyzing your screening processes and recommending improvements
- Coaching to be more effective in finding, screening and securing key candidates
- Utilizing current recruiting tools and social media platforms to help you source candidates
- Providing guidance on more effective onboarding programs to ensure your new hire success
- Training on proper recruiting techniques for telephone screening, on-campus, and in-person
Learning and People Development
- Learning programs to enhance performance management, motivation and develop your firm’s people managers and coaches
- Facilitating virtual roundtables for HR professionals
- Developing your firm’s competencies and expectations by level and discipline in your firm
- Creating one-size-fits-one career roadmaps that identify each person’s progression in your firm
- Designing and executing upward evaluations for performance management
- Creating your firm’s learning strategy and plan and mapping them to your firm competencies
- Coaching your future leaders to help them advance to the next level
- Coaching your people in delivering effective performance feedback and dealing with challenging HR situations
- Delivering custom learning programs for your people including in-house leadership development and coaching programs
Employee Engagement and Retention
- Determining how engaged your people are and strategies to enhance employee engagement
- Identifying your people’s key employee motivators and how to engage your team members based on their key motivators
- Coaching on HR program implementation including help with Anytime, Anywhere Work™ and performance management systems
- Enhancing your firm’s ability to embrace diversity among your employees, including – generational, gender, and personality consulting and workshops
We have a long history of advising HR professionals within CPA firms and believe there is no more important time to invest in your talent programs and the people who run them. Contact us to discuss how we can help elevate your HR strategy and initiatives.
Anytime, Anywhere Work™ (ATAWW)
"In the last year, the cost of salaries and benefits has skyrocketed, and for a small business like ours, we struggle to keep pace. In the midst of that, we've been able to attract and retain great talent by offering work-life balance, employee-chosen remote or hybrid options, and the ability to have flexible hours during the workday. It's been tough, but due to our ATAWW environment, we've been able to fill every open position."
Partner at A&O
We launched a pilot program offering every team member the opportunity to work at least one day a week from home, both as a part of our Best Place to Work initiative to improve work-life balance, and to mitigate the negative impact to our team from planned construction in Atlanta. To help in these efforts, Convergence Coaching delivered a relevant and actionable one-day training to our partners and managers on strategies to successfully manage a remote workforce. In addition, they provided assistance and insight into the program launch, design and communications. Their services were invaluable to the execution of our pilot, which has since become a successful program and the foundation for our remote working policy offering.
CEO and Managing Partner, Aprio, LLP
Benchmarking and Best Practices Survey
At ConvergenceCoaching®, LLC, we’re passionate about remote, hybrid and flexible work – what we call Anytime, Anywhere Work™. Since our inception in 2000, we have been managing our team and serving our clients in a 100% hybrid and flexible environment. We’ve also been h
elping clients build teams with a trust-first approach, adopting more flexibility in where and when people work and deliver services. Ultimately, this flexibility provides firms with an “edge” in recruiting and retaining the very best talent and attracting NextGen clients.
To support our consulting on Anytime, Anywhere Work, we created a biennial survey to gather data on the adoptions of flexible work practices in accounting firms across the country. We're excited to announce the publication of our latest iteration of this work, the 2022 ConvergenceCoaching® Anytime, Anywhere Work™ (ATAWW) Survey Results Summary. This comprehensive document outlines significant findings and trends from the ATAWW survey, along with best practices and strategies to help drive the successful adoption of remote and flexible work programs in firms. The 2022 survey featured a series of questions exploring ATAWW programs as well as remote client service, non-traditional staffing strategies, and cultural shifts required. Some interesting findings include:
- 95% offer remote auditing, and the percentage who performed more than half their audits away from the client site soared from 14% in 2020 to 54% in 2022
- 83% of firms allow Admin and Operations to work remote or blended
- 81% who employ remote talent hired a "stranger" outside their geography (up from 38% in 2020)
- 73% don't dictate when extra hours are worked (no more mandatory Saturdays)
- 19% offer Unlimited PTO
- 12% close the office between Christmas and New years
It's clear to us now that firms must progress their flexibility 'profile' and teach their leaders to embrace new ways of working including asynchronous scheduling, truly anywhere work, and non-traditional hiring. The survey shows that the best firms are running down the path to a highly flexible model, and those not making progress will find it increasingly difficult to attract and retain the best and brightest.
Access prior year survey data here:
2020 Anytime, Anywhere Work™ Survey Results Summary
Anytime, Anywhere Work Coaching and Consulting
Forward-thinking firms are leaning into flexible and remote/hybrid work and service delivery as key components of their long-term organizational strategy. We can help your firm develop and implement new flex and remote programs and guidelines, elevate and clarify existing programs, or coach your people managers on how to effectively inspire, manage and deliver feedback to team members in a hybrid environment that includes both in-office and remote personnel. Our ATAWW consultants seek to understand your firm’s goals and guide your HR professionals and other leaders to build a high-performance, hybrid and flexible environment that will attract NextGen talent and clients.
For the last 10-15 years, accounting firms have increasingly focused on developing more specialized offerings by service and industry. Remote service is a natural extension of that evolution by allowing firms to extend their reach and deliver specialized services to clients outside of their traditional geography. We can support you in creating remote service delivery and sales methodologies that transform your ability to acquire and serve clients independent of geography.
Contact us to learn more about our ATAWW coaching and consulting services.
Firm Learning Programs to Support Anytime, Anywhere Work
We encourage those who are truly interested in shifting to a new flexible, remote and hybrid paradigm to explore our Do It Yourself (DIY) Remote and Blended Work Video Learning Programs designed to support you in driving change wherever your firm is now. Named the 2022 Top New Product by Accounting Today, these inexpensive, on-demand videos and associated resources will allow your HR and core leadership team to explore the mindset and management approaches that are central to our ATAWW consulting before embarking on a custom consulting project.
We facilitate interactive and personalized learning for teams on communicating, collaborating, successfully operating, and managing others in a flexible and remote/hybrid work environment. Our sessions also cover delivering services to your clients in a more flexible manner, independent of geography and utilizing online tools and resources already available in most firms. Here are a few examples of our most popular ATAWW sessions, which can be customized for your firm’s needs and delivered remotely or in-person.
- Avoiding Common Remote and Hybrid Work Pitfalls
- Winning When Working Remotely or in a Hybrid Environment
- Successfully Managing Your Remote or Blended Workforce
- Successfully Delivering Services to Remote Clients
- Remote and Hybrid Business Development
Contact us to learn more about our Remote and Blended Video Learning Series or ATAWW learning events.
Our firm has worked with ConvergenceCoaching for nearly a decade now. We first engaged Convergence to lead a firm retreat and assist with the creation of our mission, vision and values. That progressed into monthly calls with our leadership team regarding firm strategy, goals and alignment. More recently, our relationship has evolved into bi-monthly coaching calls with each of our firm leaders on an individual basis. Regardless of what our needs have been, Convergence has consistently delivered sound advice and wisdom to aid our growth and development. We look forward to the next decade with them by our side.
Managing Partner, WellsColeman
Practice Coaching & Consulting
Our leadership coaching provides firm leaders, partner teams, and management committees with a framework of accountability and ongoing guidance and support to move strategies forward.
And, because we’re committed to make a difference for your firm, we’ll apply our experience to assist you, as needed, in implementing your strategies with a broad array of tactical implementation and execution services. These services include:
- Designing strategic and niche growth plans
- Revising or drafting firm governance documents
- Drafting new compensation plans
- Creating role descriptions and setting appropriate goals
- Assisting with performance management discussions
- Conducting employee or client surveys
- Launching key position recruiting efforts and/or assisting in screening candidates
- Developing differentiated market positioning for your firm
- Implementing sales processes and assisting with the transition to a CRM solution
Contact us for more information on performance enhancement or leadership coaching.
Mark your calendars! We've got a summer packed with webinars