Training, Training, Training

This past week, I spoke at the AICPA National Tax Conference in D.C. and the AICPA Sophisticated Tax Conference in Boston. In each session, I had discussed aspects related to helping firms maximize their IT investments – focusing on the move to the paperless office.

I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people interested in these topics, especially since both conferences were heavily focused on technical tax areas. To me, it signaled that at all levels firm leadership is actively engaged in learning how to make their compliance processes more efficient and productive.

One of the topics I touched upon was training in the profession. I have always maintained that we as accountants do not focus enough internally on professional development as we should. That is a broad stroke comment and I’m sure there are some firms that have invested heavily in this area.

In fact, the Bay Street Group study found that high performing firms are far more likely to invest in their people  through education and training – with 49% of employees reporting that they get thorough and continuous technology training, while no low performers claimed that (read the Seven Habits of HighlySuccessful Firms white paper, based on the study).

However, the vast majority of firms – including the four I’ve worked with in my 35 year career as a practitioner - focus few resources on developing a top-notch training program. Though we know that our talent is our greatest asset, we tend to behave as though staff will simply learn through osmosis. New staff members are hired out of college often with the expectation that they will simply know how to prepare tax returns. This expectation is simply not realistic, and ultimately hurts our business and contributes to talent loss.

We owe it to our employees and to ourselves as owners and partners to allocate time and energy to training our staff. This is particularly true when it comes to ensuring that everyone knows how and when to use the tools at our disposal – training not just on how to use software, for example, but how to use it within the business processes set up throughout the firm.