People Care

So I've been pretty quiet on the blog front for quite some time. I was just recently inspired to continue by one of my staff members that said "I miss reading what your thoughts are". If one person is interested, I suspect there are more, so here I am.

In todays market place, the accounting profession is still experiencing a shortage of qualified professionals. This environment causes businesses to be extra efficient and excellent at retention if they are to compete. We've been struggling with this for years now and every day we get better at transforming our young and not so you team from takers to givers.

Last Friday we launched the annual R&A Employee Retreat. For the first time ever, we closed the office and took all employees to a resort for a day of education. The key was that the education had nothing to do with accounting but everything to do with personal development and what R&A CPAs was all about and how or why each individual makes a difference. We had a great guest speaker, Robert Van Arlen, that started the day off and really got things moving in the right direction. For eight straight hours we educated and learned like never before. Sometimes all you have to do is ask and you'll find out where the interests are and even more important you find out where you can help. People really want to do the right thing for the most part and in order to help/teach them you must listen. In this case it helped by asking away from our typical environment in a setting that was built to show we care. We learned that we have a lot of very special people that care too! Everybody there on Friday won a very special prize and we all will benefit.

If anyone out there is in need of a keynote or motivational speaker Robert Van Arlen is your guy! Check him out at www.robertvanarlen.com. I need to make sure I let you all know that I met Robert through Main Corridor, www.maincorridor.com, another great organization you should check out.