Talented Management or Managing Talent?

The other day I received an email from a major software publisher to the accounting and financial space which requested my (hopefully) learned opinions on how the profession is both managing talent and succession.

Unfortunately, the correspondence didn’t include a link that would register me for a prize drawing sometime later as a reward for giving them for free what we charge a not-so-insignificant amount to firms, but nevertheless, since the topics are pretty much in the strategic wheelhouse of our consultancy I forged ahead and put my best foot – or more accurately, best pen, forward.

The first question asked me to best describe my interpretation of talent management – a phrase first coined I believe by the mammoth consulting firm McKinsey back in the late 1990s. To me, it meant not only recruiting and retaining the best and the brightest for your firm in the short term but also the ability to anticipate your human capital needs to meet the long term growth targets – whether ambitious or conservative. Also, the umbrella of talent management should include not only a continual evaluation system for staff performance, but also one that can help determine someone’s potential to travel that sought-after path to equity and partnership.

The next section inquired as to whether I thought the profession was handing both talent management and succession well.

Honestly, some firms are but too many are not. Since more than 60 percent of equity partners in U.S, public accounting firms are over the age of 50 and some 75 percent of the AICPA’s membership (which now stands at 400,000) will be eligible to retire by the year 2020, you do the math and tell me if there’s a fairly large talent void looming on the horizon.

How about one the size of say, Jupiter?

That’s why we often label young CPAs with a good established book of business as the “Holy Grail” of public accounting, as they are unquestionably the most sought-after commodity in the profession.

So it’s obviously incumbent on firms to determine fairly early in a staffer’s career whether they have partner potential and mentor them throughout that path.

Conversely, they also have to work to retain those who may not be labeled “can’t miss” as they are vital to a firm’s success as well.

Hopefully I gave a good account of myself (I’d like to think I’ve learned a thing or two in the 14 years I’ve been involved with accounting) and my answers will help some firm somewhere.

But the next time guys, at least thrown in a small gift certificate.