If your team aren’t growing, then neither will your practice.
Which is why it’s absolutely crucial that every single member of your team has a training plan, and time set aside on a weekly basis to work through it.
However, the mistake most practice owners make is that they only invest in technical skills training for their team e.g. accounting, tax, the latest legislative changes etc.
And whilst this is important, ultimately these skills won’t contribute to the overall growth of your practice.
So, what skills should your team be training on?
Part of any accountancy practices staff training plan should consist of non-technical, soft skills.
These are skills that aren’t directly related to completing the work, but will improve the overall efficiency, performance and ability of your team.
Here are 6 examples of non-technical skills all accountancy practices should train their team on:
1. Communication & Language
If your team are regularly communicating with clients (and each other), you want to ensure that they are able to do so in a way that is effective and gets the best results. This often comes down to the type of communication and the language that they use, which is why investing in communication and language training e.g. NLP, is a worthwhile choice.
2. Leadership
Leadership and management are two very different things. For people in a management position in your practice, you want to ensure that their leadership and influencing skills are up to scratch, so that they can get the most out of the people that they manage.
3. Time Management & Productivity
Some people are typically better at this than others, so for the people who might struggle with managing their time and maintaining productivity, consider investing in training on time management tools and strategies.
4. Presentation Skills
Your team might not necessarily be in a position where they are delivering presentations, but investing in presentation skills training will help them to develop greater confidence, as well as being able to use and control their voice to communicate more effectively.
5. Understanding Clients Needs
Being able to listen and empathise with clients’ needs is incredibly important for anybody in an accountancy practice. When this improves, so will the results you get and your overall client satisfaction.
6. Problem Solving
Problem solving is a key skill for any accountancy practice, and ultimately comes down to how somebody approaches and deals with a situation/problem. Problem solving training allows your team to think and behave differently in situations so that they choose the most effective potential solutions.
The list above isn’t exhaustive, but it gives you just a few examples of the other non-technical skills your team can be trained in, and the results that each one can get.
We all know that finding great staff can be hard…
But finding good staff with an attitude to learn and develop, and making them great, is much easier.
By investing in the technical and non-technical training of your team, you can help them to grow which in turn will help your practice to grow even more.