Best Practices from Great Firms

The following are highlights from a recent meeting of my Chicago large firm Roundtable group, an assemblage of 75% of the top local Windy City firms that has been meeting for 20 years. The group’s MPs shared some current best practices they’ve adopted to improve growth and profitability.

When a rainmaker becomes MP.  Delegate enough clients to enable billable hours to stay well south of 1,000.  The rainmaker should tell clients that “the new guy knows more than I do.”  Delegate ALL admin work.

Technology.  Instead of typing, use Dragon, an app for your smart phone that allows you to dictate emails.

Departmentalization instead of everyone being a generalist.  The technical issues that must be addressed today can only be accomplished through departmentalization.

Education.  “If anyone in our firm wants to get their masters in taxation (MST), the firm will pay for it.”

Training.  Forget sleep-inducing tapes.  Invest in live training.  Make training a standout feature of your firm.

Orientation and on-boarding.  Use your marketing director/coordinator to orient new staff.  Why have a boring accountant do it?

Be tenacious and creative in getting honest feedback and suggestions from your younger staff.  One firm has a staff advisory group that meets 3-4 times a year.  The agenda is open-ended.  Another firm convenes quarterly meetings of staff that excludes those above senior, led by one partner.  One firm convenes an annual ½ day retreat for seniors and supervisors.  Another firm makes sure that its partners take small groups of staff out to lunch on a regular basis.

Recognition.  Staff of one firm suggested that the firm replace the entire wall in the kitchen with a dry-erase board.  Its main purpose is for people to write down kudos for those deserving of recognition.  But it’s morphed into other uses such as amusing slogans or tweet–type messages.