Leadership and Management Talent Development:
CPA Firm

This company is one of the largest regional CPA firms in the Southeast, with 15 offices across five states.

Situation
Rapid growth led the firm to realize the importance of increasing its investment in people, not only to manage current business but to groom the next generation of leaders and partners. The firm has a strong human resources department, but lacked a formal leadership development strategy.

Solution
The company selected Schechter Consulting to help build a Leadership Academy, which they envisioned as an ongoing learning program for associates from individual contributors to partners. The Schechter team conducted a needs analysis and wrote eight courses customized to specific business issues. A second, crucial component of the project was to train firm partners to deliver the materials. To accomplish this, Schechter created a comprehensive train-the-trainer program complete with a facilitator’s certification process.

Results
Schechter team members facilitated one of the courses with great results, and then took on the challenge of training the trainers. Because the participants were accounting experts and not human resource professionals, they took extra time to give one-on-one support. They covered facilitation skills, how to manage a classroom, how to inspire audiences and how to solicit feedback. Participants were required to practice facilitating a course, during which the team provided coaching and feedback. At the end of the training, they were certified as official CRI facilitators.

“What makes the Schechter approach different is their focus on the client. They stayed in constant contact with us and delivered a highly customized product based on their knowledge of us and the industry’s best practices.” –Talent Development Manager