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Greetings!
Welcome
to TrainingTips, Point of Action's quarterly online newsletter for
accounting and business consulting professionals involved in firm-wide
training and development initiatives. I hope you will find the articles and
tips offered in this newsletter helpful as you create practical business
learning opportunities for your professionals. If you would like more
information about the content presented here, please feel free to contact
me anytime at (617) 429-0083, or by e-mail at kmcdonald@pointofaction.net.
Good luck with your staff development initiatives!
- Kerry
McDonald, President
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Keeping Employees Motivated Through April 15th
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Deadlines, disorganized clients, staffing constraints and
lack of time can cause stress and frustration during the busy tax season.
Considering ways to motivate employees during this hectic time may be low
on your priority list. You may, however, want to take this supervisory
responsibility more seriously because it could lead to more
highly-functioning engagement teams, greater career satisfaction, and
improved efficiency through April 15th.
"But
I don't have the time to figure out what motivates each of my employees
when deadlines near and pressures mount," you may say to yourself.
That's ok! Study after study on employee motivation has revealed that the
Top 3 motivators for staff are: (1) Interesting work, (2) Appreciation
for work accomplished, and (3) Feeling "in on things," or understanding
where individual tasks fit into larger project goals.
Think
about these universal staff motivators as you prepare for the busy months
ahead. When you assign tasks to your staff people, consider how you can
make the task seem more interesting or challenging. When your staff
people meet deadlines, surprise you by putting in extra effort, or handle
a difficult situation successfully, reward them for their efforts. Send a
quick e-mail of appreciation -- or better yet, a hand-written note. Take
your team out for lunch or bring snacks into the office to reward them
for a job well done. When delegating assignments, take the extra 30
seconds to explain where the task fits into the larger client deliverable
and WHY the task is important to overall client service goals.
By
keeping in mind the top three staff motivators, and taking an extra few
minutes during busy season to provide interesting work, show
appreciation, and explain the "big picture," you may be
surprised by how well the busy season goes.
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Using Outlook to Improve Efficiency
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 Microsoft
Outlook has numerous, often-under-used features that can improve
efficiency and lead to more successful project completion during the busy
tax months. Two functions that you may consider encouraging your staff
people and teams to begin using include: Assigning & Accepting Tasks
and using the Journal function (if your firm has upgraded to Outlook
2003).
The
Task function in Outlook enables you to create, categorize, and
prioritize projects and associated action items quickly and efficiently.
But did you know that you can assign tasks to your staff people or teams
using Outlook? Simply create a new task and click on the "Assign Task"
button to select a person to whom to delegate a certain assignment. You
can specify the priority level of the task, determine a due date, and
keep track of the status of the task once it has been assigned. When you
assign a task to one of your staff people, a new task message should
appear in his/her Inbox. Your staff person can then accept or decline the
task and, if accepted, the task will be automatically added to his/her
task list. You will then receive notices about the task's status each
time the staff person updates the task information.
Another
feature that is new in Outlook 2003 is the Journal function. While the
Journal has a great deal of functionality, one specific use for the
Journal that may benefit professional service providers is the ability to
keep track of time spent servicing clients. For example, if a client
calls you on the phone, simply create a new journal entry and click the
"Start Timer" button that appears in the new entry. Space is
provided in the entry to record notes on your conversation. When the call
finishes, simple click "Pause Timer," save and close your
entry, and you have an exact record of the amount of time spent with that
client so that you can bill the client appropriately.
There
are many more Outlook functions that can help you to improve efficiency
and better manage clients and projects. Prior to busy season, consider
experimenting with these features to see which ones work best for you.
And, if you would like to offer a customized Outlook training session for
your employees, let us know. We would be happy to conduct a brief
training session for your team.
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INSIGHT Magazine: The People Measure
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 ***
Benchmark
your human capital to ensure wise investment of your staff development
dollars. This article, published by INSIGHT Magazine, the magazine of the
Illinois CPA Society, provides a step-by-step approach for establishing
internal staff performance benchmarks
Click
the link below to access the article, "The People Measure,"
which was published in the September/October 2004 issue of INSIGHT.
Article Link... »
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Surviving Busy Season!
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With the busy tax season just around the corner, you may
want to begin now to think about creative ways to train and develop your
staff to meet the challenges of busy season. In this issue of
TrainingTips, we look at strategies to ensure a successful, productive
tax season by providing ongoing training, keeping staff motivated, and
using advanced Microsoft Outlook features to improve efficiency.
Prior
to January 15th, you may want to take stock of the current skills your
professionals exhibit and determine if there are knowledge gaps that
could have a negative impact on productivity from January to April. To
determine skill gaps, consider surveying In- Charges and Managers to
identify concepts they may be spending time teaching staff on-the-job and
that could be better addressed in a formal training program. You may also
review job-level staff evaluation forms or staff self-assessments to spot
deficiencies and allocate training resources accordingly.
During
busy season, consider offering one-hour Saturday lunch 'n learns to
supplement technical knowledge and reduce the intensity of long work
hours. Topics could vary and might include a session highlighting an
interesting or complex client case, a roundtable discussion on what each
team member has learned on a particular engagement, a training on managing
staff or prioritizing work, or a technology training program. Scheduling
quick, 20-minute presentations by Managers or Partners on a particular
topic of interest might also be an effective way to provide timely
training even when schedules tighten.
By
proactively examining skill gaps prior to the start of busy season, and
offering brief, targeted training programs to help your professionals
gain important competencies, you will find that January through April
will be more productive and rewarding.
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