Teach them well: mentoring programs go a long way toward staff retention, development

California CPA, Jan-Feb, 2006 by Jerry Ascierto

Any accounting firm wooing young accountants in the past few years knows that competition is fierce.

The profession's growth, coupled with a finite pool of candidates, has accounting firms dangling higher starting salaries, beefed-up benefit packages and other perks to attract employees. But there's another benefit firms can tout to lure job applicants--mentoring programs.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Such programs can hasten the career development of employees by matching them with a senior firm member. These mentors work with the up-and-comers on everything from getting acclimated to the corporate culture to the finer points of their technical acumen. What's more, mentoring programs can help firms shore up their retention rates and groom future firm leaders.

ADVICE FOR FIRMS

For accounting firms looking to start a mentoring program, two keys include not getting bogged down in administrative procedure and establishing the right mentor-protege relationship.

"The focus of any mentoring program needs to be on the success of the protege, not on the paperwork," says Mary Richardson, a Novato-based HR consultant with Herrerias and Associates. "The benefit the protege receives from the relationship is that someone will give them clear, honest feedback in a non-supervisory manner. Proteges need to know that it's important to be open to feedback and how to ask for and receive it."

While the goals of mentoring programs are the same, how those goals are achieved vary from firm to firm.

PWC'S MENTORING PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM

PricewaterhouseCoopers' Partner Connectivity Program is aimed at all staff at all levels. Each partner takes 12-15 staff members under their wing, allowing them to get to know their staff's personal goals, as well as the employees' daily work performance.

"When we get to know the whole person, we find that there's a better connection with the firm," says Moire Rasmussen, PricewaterhouseCoopers' diversity leader, based in San Francisco.

The firm has other mentoring programs, including its Minority Transition Program and Mentoring Partnership Program, that aid staff in forming an individual career experience.

The Minority Transition Program connects new minority hires with a peer mentor, who helps the new hire get acclimated to the firm; a higher-level employee, who helps the new hire with career development; and a firm partner, who assists in the new hire's professional progress and helps to ensure opportunities are available to work on high-profile projects and clients.

The firm also offers a Mentoring Partnership Program, connecting minorities and woman eyed for partnership with senior leaders of the firm.

Don Wen, a PwC partner in San Francisco, credits the program and his informal mentoring relationship with a firm's partner for his rise through the firm.

Wen joined PwC in 1992 in an entry-level assurance position, and over the years, struck up an informal mentoring relationship with one of the office's partners, Mick Friend.

"He was someone I could always talk to, whether I was wondering about my prospects in public accounting, or which types of assignments I was taking on," Wen says. "He was always open and honest with me."

Friend became Wen's formal mentor after Wen entered the firm's Mentoring Partnership Program. Friend gave Wen some key advice during the program that went a long way toward making partner.

Wen was working in PwC's Sacramento office at the time, "and he told me that partnership opportunities were greater in a larger market," Wen says. "So I started taking on some clients in the San Francisco area and started making a transition from not only a visibility, but a networking standpoint."

Friend helped Wen network with other PwC partners by pointing him toward higher-profile assignments and volunteering him to help on various national programs and initiatives at PwC. "It was very helpful for me to get exposure by working for other partners, who ultimately comment on your admission process," Wen says.

DELOITTE'S MENTORING DATABASE

Each new hire at Deloitte is assigned a counselor, who acts as performance and career coach. Counselors help new employees get acclimated, guide them on assignments and work with the new hires on their career goals.

The firm facilitates mentor-protege relationships, though the program is optional. "We struggle with making mentoring too programmatic," says Mark Norland, Deloitte's national director of performance management, based in San Francisco. "But if you're just starting in the office, it may be daunting to approach someone you want to emulate. We've tried to break down that wall."

To that end, Deloitte has made mentoring part of the job description of its partners, principals, directors and managers, telling them to be on the lookout for proteges and to keep an open-door policy.

Deloitte also has developed an internal mentoring database, where an employee can look for willing mentors in the firm. New hires are made aware of the database--which has bred more than 400 mentoring relationships in its first pilot year--during a series of orientation sessions. The database is in use in a number of pilot offices, and the company plans to expand its visibility.