Your people are your firm’s most valuable asset. They interact with your clients, apply your practices, and generate new value. Their time and effort are what you sell. But despite the importance of sound people management, many firms struggle with attracting, retaining, and developing the right mix of professionals to meet their clients needs. Our approach to talent management is grounded in cutting edge research in management and behavioral science, with an eye towards application in a professional environment, helping our clients solve their most difficult human challenges.
Understand your talent model
Despite the importance of talent management, most professional firms haven’t given much thought to the appropriate talent model for their business. We work with our clients to align their human capital plans with their strategy, ensuring that they have the right associates at the right levels, and with the right expertise. In many cases, changes in the structure of a firm’s business have exposed major skill gaps. Our clients develop a better sense of where their people are strong, and the actions they need to build the capability of the firm, based on data, not anecdote.
Professional Management for Professionals
As experts in managing professionals, we’re also experts in professional management. Many organizations promote based on technical skill, not managerial talent, and then under-invest in manager development. This leads to an ad-hoc management culture that will prevent an organization from growing. But this problem won’t be solved with some one size fits all training, especially courses that don’t specifically address the needs of a professional firm. Instead, we know that every client will have different goals when it comes to developing their management culture. A firm of project managers might rock spreadsheets, but face challenges with the human side of the business, and a creative agency maybe a great place to work, but need help keeping their projects on track. Especially in high turnover industries, if you conduct a training with a group of managers today, they may be gone tomorrow. That’s why we focus all of our manager development on comprehensive programs that create lasting change in your firm, by focusing on your specific needs, embedding new standards and processes, and helping you implement a more professional management culture across the organization.
Attract and select the best candidates
Attracting the best talent isn’t just about hanging out at professional school recruiting events – everyone in your industry is doing that. Instead, we help our clients identify the traits that make someone successful in their firm, including cultural fit, skills, and experience, and then design an approach that attracts those candidates. We find where they are, develop guides to interviewing them, and help you select the right assessments for screening in the best people. Our approach is tailored to your firm, because we know that what makes someone successful at every company is different.
Retain and develop your people
No matter how valuable your people are to your firm, they can walk out the door at any time. That’s why it’s so important to keep them engaged and growing in their work. We help our clients keep their best employees by developing management strategies, optimizing their talent, and creating fulfilling development opportunities. At a professional firm, we know that staff development and retention are inextricably linked, so we never look at them in isolation, but we also know that development is about more than training, it means providing engaging on the job learning opportunities, challenging assignments, and supportive teams that push associates to grow. We help our clients from start to finish – mapping out their needs, developing solutions through training and coaching, and implementing change programs so that they can see results.