Human Resources

Delivering Transformative Feedback to Your Team

Everyone has areas for improvement, so why do we avoid addressing performance issues with team members and peers? In this session, we’ll explore the reasons that keep us from addressing needed performance improvements and overcome our fears and resignation to gain the confidence and commitment needed to deliver feedback that transforms individual and team performance, where you will:

• Identify barriers that keep us from addressing areas for improvement
• Learn ways to get to the true root cause of performance or behavior
• Recall methods and language to enable us to inspire others
• Discover an approach to clarifying ownership and accountability for the resulting improvement plan

Attend this session to gain the motivation you need to address long-standing performance improvements in your firm.

Develop a Leverage Culture

We all want to invest in new technology, learning and development, and innovations to enhance our firms. To fuel those investments, we have to ensure that we have the right business practices that protect your firm’s profitability. If only the professional services business model was intuitive! Many of us struggle to get our arms around the various “levers” in our practices that influence profitability and success. Attend this session to explore our FAVORITE elements of economic health in your practice where you will:

• Understand the most important CPA firm success metrics, such as fees per partner, leverage, and rate per hour
• Discover ways you can improve all three metrics including progressive pricing strategies, delegation, culling clients, and other ideas we’ll generate together
• Identify methods to further these change ideas with firm leadership

Leave this session with a clearer picture of how you can drive practice profitability and success!

Driving Change Through Strategic Firm-Wide Communication

Today’s organizations must navigate ever-accelerating change in standards, technology, mobility, talent, succession, consolidation, globalization, values and norms, and more. To successfully manage dramatic change, leaders must strategically design, execute, and communicate their strategies with the same focus and intention that they spend conceiving of the planned change. In this session, prepare to drive your firm’s change initiatives by:

• Learning the elements of a strategic communications plan
• Identifying the stakeholders and cascade of communications that need to occur to each and when
• Planning your message to engage and enroll others in the planned change and powerfully handle objections, too

Leave this session with a template you can use with your leadership team to more effectively drive organizational change through better firm-wide communication.

Questions about this course or a training? Contact us.

Driving Employee Engagement

Your people are your most important asset. When they are motivated and engaged, collaboration and client service is elevated and your firm is best able to work toward its strategic priorities for growth and development. In this half-day workshop, we’ll explore four strategies to drive employee engagement including:

• Putting people priorities first and actively managing your people
• Giving all work meaning
• Garnering input and feedback and acting on it
• (Really) Addressing low performance and bad behavior

We will also identify five signs of full engagement and what to do when they’re missing, including:

• Voting with their presence
• Vocal constructive contributions
• Caring about the entity and its success
• Meeting performance expectations
• Creating satisfied clients

Leave this workshop with an action plan for boosting employee engagement and understanding how to best motivate your people!

Questions about this course or a training? Contact us.

Effective People Development Strategies

Building a team of productive and motivated people is a challenge many firms face. It is important to have effective processes in place to assess your staff’s progress in achieving predetermined goals and build on that process to further their careers within your firm. Attend this course to learn how to:

• Set performance expectations and establish individual goals
• Apply different methods of providing performance feedback
• Develop Career RoadMaps and mentoring programs
• Use effective performance management and motivational strategies

Leave this session with an action plan to use to help your people and your firm succeed!

Questions about this course or a training? Contact us.

Effectively Driving Change in a Sea of Resistance

Today’s organizations face an ever-accelerating, chaotic pace of change in standards, technology, talent, client expectations and more. To successfully manage change, leaders must strategically design, execute, and communicate their strategies with the same focus and intention that they spend conceiving of the planned change. In this session, learn strategies to drive effective change by:

• Understanding the psychology and mechanics of change
• Creating strategies for moving your team members – even resistors – along the change adoption curve
• Exploring the crucial role of strategic communication and developing a plan that considers the motivators, interests and questions of each group affected

Leave this session with a strategy for driving change that will better your people, your organization and your clients!

Elevating the Role of HR (1-day workshop)

Today’s firm administrators and human resource professionals face unique challenges. Many times, you are asked to help implement a firm strategy or policy without having input prior to the decisions being made. Or, you find yourself in the middle of strategic or philosophical disconnects between key leaders or departments, attempting to mediate without feeling empowered to truly solve the issues. In addition, you may foresee the need to invest now in developing and retaining your best and brightest with the impending retirements of existing leaders. Attend to gain some perspective and ideas that will help!

In this action-packed session, we will:

• Discuss ways to elevate the HR function to actively participate in driving firm strategy, facilitate open and honest conversations, and have a bigger impact on your firm’s overall success
• Explore a strategic planning methodology that you can deploy to help uncover disparate viewpoints and unify your team around specific strategies
• Understand what motivates your staff and learn specific actions you can take to inspire them and keep them fully engaged with your firm
• Identify your high potential team members and discuss ways to develop them for long term success
• Learn how to organize your team and resources to ensure the successful transition of retiring leaders

Enhance your role as a strategic advisor in your firm, identify, retain, and develop your future leaders, and plan for succession!

Questions about this course or a training? Contact us.

Elevating Your Human Resource Function to Support Firm Strategy

HR is more critical than ever today in your firm’s success. Traditionally, HR has been viewed as a “compliance” necessity as a firm grows or an “administrative” group that can alleviate practice management work and take on “sticky situations” from partners. In this session, we’ll identify how to position – and empower – your firm’s HR function to support your firm’s strategic initiatives, including:

• Identifying your firm’s most strategic HR initiatives
• Defining the right level and roles for your firm’s HR needs so they are positioned for success
• Involving your HR professionals in strategic planning and developing an HR plan to unify your team around specific strategies
• Identifying empowerment accountability strategies to ensure that your HR professionals are supporting your leadership team

Leave this session with ideas and actions you can implement immediately to elevate your HR function to support your firm’s success!

Questions about this course or a training? Contact us.

Embracing Generational Differences in Your Practice

Generation X, Y, and Baby Boomer team members all have unique differences. Because there are different generational experiences, we’ll explore the core distinctions between the generations and identify methods for maximizing each of your team members’ success. Attend this session to:

• Understand the generational concept and explore Baby Boomer, Gen X, and Gen Y differences
• Learn methods for motivating your diverse team members
• Explore organizational changes that may be required to succeed with a combination of Baby Boomer, Gen X, and Gen Y leaders in your midst

Leave this session with a better understanding of each generation and ideas for enhancing communication and collaboration in your teams.

Questions about this course or a training? Contact us.