A CPA's softer side: training supervisors in your firm.

• Author: Evensen, Ronald
• Position: Practicemgmt - Certified Public Accountant

Whether in public practice, education, government, industry or somewhere in between, a key indicator of your success will be your ability to work with a wide variety of people. As a result, more and more CPA firms are investing in the "soft skills" that allow their team members to be better communicators, negotiators, supervisors and overall contributors to the firm.

Investing in Supervisors

It's been a rough several years for CPA firms in terms of recruiting and retaining talent. And as anyone who has been through the process knows, recruiting can be quite costly. That's why retaining quality staff is so important to a firm's bottom line.

A key way a firm can invest in its staff at many levels is to ensure its supervisors have the tools they need to do their jobs. Supervisors play an important role in controlling personnel costs through proper motivation of staff, delegation and on-the-job training--thus the increasing importance of people skills to the success of supervisors.

Consider the following:

1. Supervisors spend an increasing portion of their time dealing with people and their problems (assistants, managers, partners and client personnel).

2. The definition of productivity typically changes as people progress in their firm. Early in a person's career, the firm wants to maximize chargeable hours. Later, the firm may want its people also to be involved in developing or teaching CPAs, recruiting, dealing with potential clients and updating technical manuals, functions that can be classified as productive non-chargeable time.

3. Frequently people problems are intermixed with technical problems, requiring not only technical knowledge, but also people skills.

4. A supervisor must learn to work smart and teach others to do the same.

5. Dealing with people is an exciting part of personal growth and an opportunity to increase your financial rewards and personal satisfaction.

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   Supervising, Evaluating and Counseling Assistants

   One of the cornerstone commandments for any supervisor is to train your replacement! If no one else can do your job, how can you be promoted to bigger and better things?

   Training your replacement involves assigning, teaching and providing feedback to assistants. To be fully effective at this, you must personalize your efforts for every employee because each has differing personalities and experiences. In spite of stereotypes that imply that all accountants are clones, the truth is that "one size does...