Retaining and Hiring Technical People In Professional Service Organizations - "Techies are people too"
Once upon a time technology was a bastion of secrecy and impenetrable complexities. Techies, the folks who created, managed and sustained the mainframes and programming applications were a breed apart. They had wonderful talents along with their assorted features that were in direct conflict with the 3 piece suit set. Dealing with this diverse group of technologically competent but socially miscast was complex. Things did change.
With the rise of personal computing, technology became a mass knowledge base. Non-techies learned terms like spreadsheets and fonts and flow diagrams. The Certified Public Accounting universe embraced the technical advances that enabled all sorts of support for the tax, audit, and business advisory practices. Moreover, it was clear that a great deal of the technical support required would come from the various professionals on staff who combined their accounting and business knowledge with technical skills.
Things are moving fast and furious in the technical world. Many issues surround the advancing use of technology including networking, wireless, databases, security, internet applications and management, privacy, identity theft and disaster recovery. This advancing of technology beyond just one-time spreadsheets has certainly identified the need for the more technical to step out and support computer use throughout the organization. And there is ample evidence that the techie has once again stepped out to become a vital support within every organization, especially in CPA and other professional firms.
With the techie folks there are some common and some special considerations. First they have to be recognized for the skills that map to what is needed to support the firm and the firm clients. Second, there is the issue that the techie will know things that the partners do not. This separation of skills is common whenever one hires an expert. The need for the techie is for their expertise. If they only mirrored what partners and staff already knew, there would likely be no pressing need for their services.
There are 5 basic criteria that require review and assessment when locating, hiring and sustaining the techie within the firm.
► Ability to Communicate
► Technical Skill
► Effort
► Industry Experience
► Compatibility with organization
The following describes key elements that need to be considered within your professional
firm.
Ability to Communicate
Communication includes many elements: a common lexicon, verbal skills, writing skills and a desire to be understood. In those old days, the techie would speak in techie terms such as DOS, Cobol, Tape Sorts, and hexadecimals. Today, the terms are more widely known. Database is not confusing, cell formatting is understood by most, paragraph indentation is widely used, block diagrams, slide shows, web site links are all known and used.
The key is to make sure that the techie has the capability of communication prior to the hiring process. While this is a skill that can be improved, the skill requires a foundation from the beginning. During the hiring process, conversations and sample writings can demonstrate the ability and success that the potential hire has achieved.
The process of communication requires capabilities in a dual mode. That is, communication has to allow for the techie and the staff and the partners all being able to speak and listen successfully. This can be assisted by regular meetings that support both formal and informal conversations for the purpose of improving comprehension among everyone.
With successful communication as the goal, the firm must provide ample opportunities for the 3 C’s – clear, concise, complete – of any successful conversation. As a further support of this effort, it is important for the firm to provide ongoing opportunities for practice, practice, practice.
A significant component of communication is the ability to write as well as speak. Writing is an art form that needs all of the components identified above along with the element of practice. Writing includes correspondence, documentation, systems descriptions, proposals, management letters, and email.
Both techie and non-techie can make both their personal and work lives better with continuing efforts to improve and enhance all forms of communications.
Technical Skill
Of course, expertise and skill for the chosen fields of technology are required. This includes making sure that the techie has the skill relevant to the task at hand. Having skills in HTML does not relate if the work needed is to support accounting software installations.
All knowledge never exists within one person. So, a measure of one’s technical skills includes knowing the boundaries of their knowledge combined with knowing how to get answers to the questions that are outside their boundaries. This includes knowing how to contact software and hardware vendors, receive benefits from user groups, and research technical issues. The technical community has a very well defined foundation of information that needs to be accessed and understood. Beyond that, there are always new issues that need to be integrated with any technical solution. The techie needs to recognize that knowledge requirements include maintaining old information and cobble it together with the new.
The technical knowledge has to map to what the firm needs. Whether it is spreadsheet expertise or accounting software installations, the knowledge has to be usable within the firm within a short period of time of hire date. Consequently, it is clear that the techie can provide a resource as determined by the firm.
Effort
Effort may be hard to assess during the interview and assessment process. However, it is an essential element to working within the firm that the techie’s effort matches the staff, managers and partners capability for work and task completion. The phrase “work smart” certainly applies. It implies the appropriate application of technical knowledge to the tasks at hand. The techie must be able to comprehend what needs to be done, have the capacity to follow directions, be willing to ask questions for clarification, and understand how to plan for internal or client related tasks.
Just as you rely on tax and audit staff to put in the effort to understand that issues surrounding their work, so must the techie. If their task is to install accounting software, the techie must provide sufficient effort so they understand the terms, the methods of data entry, the reports required and so on. This is more than just the necessary technical skill identified above. The techies need to establish work habits that map to the rest of the firm. They cannot hide behind their unique skills and state that efforts end at 40 hours every week. The techies must be able to plan their effort to fit with the identified schedule for work completion.
Industry Experience
When the firm has specific industry oriented clients, it may be required to hire techies that have specific expertise. Examples include medical and hospitals, manufacturing, oil exploration, government, and possibly accounting profession if the techie will be performing some internal support. The key is to be able to measure the techies experience and what they learned during that time. Having 10 years experience has to mean the accumulation of 10 years of work, not 1 year repeated 10 times.
Sometimes it is not possible to find the right combination of skills and experience. In this case, it is possible to consider hiring the person with the appropriate technical skill and then sending that person to various training courses – seminars, online, internal, et al. Typically, it is better to find the techie without industry experience than an individual with industry experience and teach them the technical applications.
Compatibility with organization
Everybody in the firm needs to get along – professionally and personally. This does not mean that all have to be deeply committed friends. Rather it is significant to understand the chemistry within the firm for what makes it best for everyone to succeed. When interviewing techies, there can be tell-tale signs that would indicate the techies’ capacity to be integrated with the staff and partners. What questions does the techie ask, how much interest do they have about staff backgrounds, do they have personal and professional skills that are of interest to the existing staff, does the techie have innate curiosity?
All of the questions that are asked during the interview process can help determine the techie’s compatibility with the organization. The combination of their demeanor and their ability to communicate will lead to a substantial amount of information as to their fit within the firm.
Issues surrounding compatibility do not end with the interview and hiring processes. When the techie is within the organization, it is everyone’s responsibility to continue the development of functioning and successful working relationships. Techies and CPAs can get along when everyone wants it to happen.
Conclusions
Within any organization, finding, hiring and sustaining personnel is among the highest of priorities. CPA and other professional services firms are no exception. Having staff that have CPA credentials and expertise in various disciplines is very important. In this 21st century, possessing technical skills is one more requirement. Depending on the mix of work within your firm, techies are just like people. They can be a significant contributor to the firm’s success.
About Author:
Richard Oppenheim, CPA.CITP, has used and written about technology for more than four decades. He currently provides advice through the Oppenheim Business Group. He can be reached at richopp@oppenheimgroup.comor through his Web site, http://www.oppenheimgroup.com .
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