CPAmerica Advantage News From Your Accounting Association
How Can CPAmerica Surveys Help Your Firm?
April 2021
P. 3 4 Preferred Provider Spotlight P. 4 Member News
President's Corner - Alan Deichler P.
CPAmerica offers a variety of customizable surveys that are exclusive to our members. They are used to collect informa tion that can help improve employee engagement, improve client communications, and help partners and managers find out their firm’s overall climate in order to make the changes needed to make their firm a more desirable place to work. The Employee Engagement Survey identifies key indicators and drivers of employee engagement to help your firm develop an action plan for its continued success. This roughly 20-minute survey solicits information about firm culture, work environment, employee engagement, and overall job satisfaction. For $750, you receive the complete raw data, a two-page summary report that provides a quick glance of overall results, and a full survey report that includes analyzed findings for each question. The Upward Evaluation Survey asks a series of questions about each partner and/or manager to evaluate key aspects of his or her performance. This assessment is intended to help motivate supervisors to achieve their highest potential by reviewing employee responses about their communication, training practices, and leadership. When you purchase this survey for $250, you receive the raw data and a brief summary report for each supervisor. We offer a premium report that offers an in-depth look at each supervisor’s results and compares their scores to the firm’s overall averages for an additional fee of $750. In addition to these valuable internal assessments, CPAmerica also offers a Client Satisfaction Survey designed to determine overall client satisfaction, identify potential niche services, improve client communication,
and clarify areas of strength and weakness within your firm. For $750, your firm receives raw survey data and a full report that is ready to share with employees. Most recently, Thomas Howell Ferguson, P.A. (THF) needed a survey to gather a COVID pulse on staff. THF’s People Champion Amy Rubes, PHR, SHRM-CP, reached out to CPAmerica’s Member Services Manager Colleen Gaddy to develop this survey and she received the help she needed. “I recently inquired if they had a survey for COVID. I explained to Colleen what our desired goal was and within 48-hours she compiled information I could build from. I was provided options for roll out, messaging and results that suited our needs,” Rubes said. “In all of my experiences with CPAmerica Surveys, I have been pleased with the timeliness, professionalism and assistance provided. Our results are comprehensive, easy to understand and very cost effective. I would recommend this service to any firm in this arena.”
These thorough and customizable surveys can help you better understand the way your staff and management work together and provide a way to benchmark year-to-year progress. Please contact Colleen Gaddy at cgaddy@cpamerica. org for more information on any of CPAmerica’s custom surveys.
Technology for the Next Normal: This is Part 2 of 2. Part 1 can be read in the March issue at: https://bit.ly/2OSoXRi Scheduling time on Tuesday through Thursday or on Tuesday and Friday was sufficient to handle all administrative work and needed face-to-face meetings. Can your firm make the transition to embrace and adopt all the technologies mentioned before? First, vendors may not give you a choice as older technologies are discontinued. Second, you will need to adopt many of these technologies to provide a better team member experience. Technology remains one of the best recruitment levers available to firms. Third, your clients have come to expect ease of use and convenience. Firms cannot continue to business in this third decade of the 21st century the same way they did in the 20th century! Clients may stay with your firm because they like you and your work, but they may not tell you that your client experience is terrible!
by Randy Johnston, shareholder, K2 Enterprises LLC What are some potential tools to use today? While this article cannot provide all the details to make the transition, I would encourage you to participate in CPAmerica events this year and beyond. Presenters will cover every topic above in the technology conference, and many will be covered during other events. Consider this “best of the best” evolving product guide below for each category named above. There are many technologies to consider, but remember to look at your firm’s Mission, Vision, Goals, Strategic Business Plan, and Tactical Business Plan before adding these tools to your Strategic Technology Plan and Tactical Technology Plan. So, what can we review and select in each of these categories? While your firm strategy, size, and expertise could change these products, these recommendations should be directionally accurate. See Next Normal, continued on page 2