Valentine, valentine, please be mine!

In previous February columns, I have sometimes written about loving your clients (see February 2007 – ‘More bees with honey...’ for example) and reaping the rewards. Well, Valentine’s Day is fast approaching yet again, so this February I wanted to look at the other party we should be showing more ‘love’ to.

I am, of course, talking about our employees. Our staff are those who work the long hours we are about to ask of them during tax season. They are the ones who often voluntarily go the extra mile for our clients and help us to build brand loyalty to our firms. These are the people who we hope to mould into an image of ourselves and become our successors. Oh yes, our staff deserve to know how much we appreciate them.

Let me ask you a question... what did you do for yur employees during the holiday season? Did you buy them a gift? Did you give them a bonus? Did you take them out for a meal? Did you give them time off, with pay, to be with their families and enjoy the festive season?

If you said ‘no’ to just one of those questions, you know you’re not doing all you can to show your appreciation for them and motivate them to perform at their ultimate level.

Now, some of you reading this might be thinking ‘Oh yeah, I’m going to let them walk all over me!’ or you might be having similar, watered-down thoughts, but let me put it to you like this... if you hit a crisis of some sort, business or personal, how many of your team do you think will stand up and be counted, and do whatever it takes to make sure you and your firm are properly taken care of?

How many employees do you think would step-up to the plate if your spouse (or significant other) were taken seriously ill?
What if YOU became incapacitated, how many of your staff do you believe would make sure your business operated at its optimum level, even if you never showed up for months at a time?

Well, my friends, I can tell you from painful personal experience, that although, as the Beatles so eloquently stated ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, our expression of gratitude is the currency that the ‘Love’ – however you want to define that – we have for our employees is traded in.

I was amazingly lucky to have wonderful people working for me when Fiona (my late wife) was taken ill – I had the luxury of being able to go to hospital appointments with her, chemo sessions, surgeries and just stay home to be by her side and nurse her through a terrible time, and take some time out after her passing, and for that I am forever grateful.

If I didn’t have the right people on the team, and look after them the way I would have wanted to be taken care of by an employer if I were in their shoes, maybe I wouldn’t have been so lucky...

So, let me put what I want to say this month into a few simple bullet points:

If you ‘loved’ someone, would you...

• ...shout at them, almost to the point of being abusive, and make unreasonable demands?
• ...constantly overload them with way too much work?
• ...expect them to put in many hours of their own time to meet deadlines, without thanks or compensation?
• ...put obstacles in their way to prevent them from progressing, professionally or financially?
• ...purposely not praise good work?
• ...under-appreciate them financially – by under paying them?
• ...deny them excellent training opportunities?
• ...house them in dingy, oppressive, depressing surroundings?

I think not.

Yet, in many firms I see these things happening time and again.

I see Partners rule with an iron fist - staff shudder at the thought of being called into their office.

I see staff – good people - on the verge of nervous breakdowns because of their workload.

I see staff leave their employer because they feel taken for granted, and have never been told ‘well done, good job, etc...’ by their employer. In those cases, their reward for a job well done was not being shouted at, and twice as much work as before!

I see firms setting 2,100 chargeable hours as an annual target and setting people up for failure – either in not hitting the target, or by a drastic reduction in the quality of the work done in order to hit unreasonable goals.

I see ‘Mañana Management’ – Partners constantly telling staff that they will review their salary etc ‘soon’, or promote them ‘soon’ but never getting round to actually doing it.

I see some firms view training as an expense, and in tougher economic times, it’s the first thing to be cut. The irony is that this would be the time when it is often needed more than ever!

I also see many offices look like they haven’t been decorated since the second world war!

The firms who display two or more of the above characteristics are the ones whose staff are coming to my firm in numbers saying ‘get me out of here!’ which, of course, we are only too pleased to help with.

But the problem is bigger than that – there are many great staff members who defect and go into industry, reducing the talent pool to public accounting firms yet again. But it wasn’t public accounting, per se, that was the problem, it was the public accounting firm they were working for!

So please, show a little love to your staff this year. It will be one of the best investments you’ll make in 2009!