The retirement of 78 million Baby Boomers over the next 15 years will generate a tremendous demand for new talent. To attract and retain the brightest recruits, accounting firms will need to create a “culture of cool” that matches the values and work styles of today’s young professionals.
Unfortunately, a lot of firms are still running with “old school” cultural values, such as:
- Not defining and communicating the firm’s mission, vision, values, objectives and overall strategy
- Maintaining an attachment to the “old” hierarchy model, where partners interact with managers but leave it to the managers to interact with staff and interns
- Not investing in staff to get them ready for leadership, and holding on to responsibilities that should be delegated as part of that development process
- Not being open to ideas and feedback from staff and instead dismissing their suggestions with “they don’t get it yet”
- Maintaining an attachment to “face time” in the sense that if they can’t see you, they feel you must not be working
- Acting as if the owners have earned the right to behave how they choose and don’t need to learn, grow, develop business or improve because of their equity or level in the organization
- Not investing in the firm’s future, yet expecting a higher-than-market buyout when they hand over a firm that isn’t ready for the sea change ahead
It saddens me to see firms hold on to the ways of the past, trying to replicate “how it was when they came up” and living in denial about the effect that these old cultural norms have on the motivation and engagement of their people, only to see the firm’s morale, then the caliber of staff and finally their overall valuation decline.
There are many things the firm’s leadership can do to make the transition to “cool.” But the most important first step is to openly share with their team that they are committed to drive cultural change and then to ask their young up-and-comers — to help guide them to a “culture of cool.” Engaging in dialogue about the changes the firm’s team members would most like to see and then identifying the “Top Three Cool Ideas” to implement are excellent steps forward.
Guest post by Jennifer Wilson, a partner and co-founder of ConvergenceCoaching, LLC. For more on this subject go to convergencecoaching.com/blog or email jen@convergencecoaching.com.
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