Teach them well: mentoring programs go a long way toward staff retention, development.

Any accounting firm wooing young accountants in the past few years knows that competition is fierce.

The profession's growth, coupled with a finite pool of candidates, has accounting firms dangling higher starting salaries, beefed-up benefit packages and other perks to attract employees. But there's another benefit firms can tout to lure job applicants--mentoring programs.

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Such programs can hasten the career development of employees by matching them with a senior firm member. These mentors work with the up-and-comers on everything from getting acclimated to the corporate culture to the finer points of their technical acumen. What's more, mentoring programs can help firms shore up their retention rates and groom future firm leaders.

ADVICE FOR FIRMS

For accounting firms looking to start a mentoring program, two keys include not getting bogged down in administrative procedure and establishing the right mentor-protege relationship.

"The focus of any mentoring program needs to be on the success of the protege, not on the paperwork," says Mary Richardson, a Novato-based HR consultant with Herrerias and Associates. "The benefit the protege receives from the relationship is that someone will give them clear, honest feedback in a non-supervisory manner. Proteges need to know that it's important to be open to feedback and how to ask for and receive it."

While the goals of mentoring programs are the same, how those goals are achieved vary from firm to firm.

PWC'S MENTORING PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM

PricewaterhouseCoopers' Partner Connectivity Program is aimed at all staff at all levels. Each partner takes 12-15 staff members under their wing, allowing them to get to know their staff's personal goals, as well as the employees' daily work performance.

"When we get to know the whole person, we find that there's a better connection with the firm," says Moire Rasmussen, PricewaterhouseCoopers' diversity leader, based in San Francisco.

The firm has other mentoring programs, including its Minority Transition Program and Mentoring Partnership Program, that aid staff in forming an individual career experience.

The Minority Transition Program connects new minority hires with a peer mentor, who helps the new hire get acclimated to the firm; a higher-level employee, who helps the new hire with career development; and a firm partner, who assists in the new hire's professional progress and helps to ensure opportunities are available to work on high-profile projects and clients.

The firm also offers a Mentoring Partnership Program, connecting minorities and woman eyed for partnership with senior leaders of the firm.

Don Wen, a PwC partner in San Francisco, credits the program and his informal mentoring relationship with a firm's partner for his rise through the firm.

Wen joined PwC in 1992 in an entry-level assurance position, and over the years, struck up an informal mentoring relationship with one of the office's partners, Mick Friend.

"He was someone I could always talk to, whether I was wondering about my prospects in public accounting, or which types of assignments I was taking on," Wen says. "He was always open and honest with me."

Friend became Wen's formal mentor after Wen entered the firm's Mentoring Partnership Program. Friend gave Wen some key advice during the program that went a long way toward making partner.

Wen was working in PwC's Sacramento office at the time, "and he told me that partnership opportunities were greater in a larger market," Wen says. "So I started taking on some clients in the San Francisco area and started making a transition from not only a visibility, but a networking standpoint."

Friend helped Wen network with other PwC partners by pointing him toward higher-profile assignments and volunteering him to help on various national programs and initiatives at PwC. "It was very helpful for me to get exposure by working for other partners, who ultimately comment on your admission process," Wen says.

DELOITTE'S MENTORING DATABASE

Each new hire at Deloitte is assigned a counselor, who acts as performance and career coach. Counselors help new employees get acclimated, guide them on assignments and work with the new hires on their career goals.

The firm facilitates mentor-protege relationships, though the program is optional. "We struggle with making mentoring too programmatic," says Mark Norland, Deloitte's national director of performance management, based in San Francisco. "But if you're just starting in the office, it may be daunting to approach someone you want to emulate. We've tried to break down that wall."

To that end, Deloitte has made mentoring part of the job description of its partners, principals, directors and managers, telling them to be on the lookout for proteges and to keep an open-door policy.

Deloitte also has developed an internal mentoring database, where an employee can look for willing mentors in the firm. New hires are made aware of the database--which has bred more than 400 mentoring relationships in its first pilot year--during a series of orientation sessions. The database is in use in a number of pilot offices, and the company plans to expand its visibility.

The company also has hired an outside firm that specializes in implementing mentoring programs to train top-level staff to become mentors.

Some of this activity has grown from previous programs. Deloitte has a national mentoring task force with representatives from the firm's Woman's Initiative and Multiculturalism and Inclusion Initiative. These initiatives look to create a better environment for Deloitte's women and minorities with an eye on decreasing turnover, as well as aiding woman and minorities in being promoted to leadership positions.

MOSS ADAMS' LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Moss Adams' buddy program matches every one- to two-year staffer with a more established peer who acts as resource for any questions the new hire might have about company policy. In addition, staff members have a performance coach who reviews their evaluation with them twice a year.

The firm also has a 2-year-old Leadership Development Program geared toward managers and senior managers identified as potential leaders. These future leaders are matched with a firm partner who helps them with their career development.

One of the upshots of the program is the high staff retention.

"We have extremely low turnover of that group, so once you get identified as somebody with strong leadership potential, hardly any of them leave," says Susan Carpenter, managing director of human resources at Moss Adams' Seattle headquarters.

But in addition to the leadership development program, informal mentoring programs have popped up at several Moss Adams offices, matching young staff with a mentor who supplements the protege's performance coach.

BPM'S MENTORING PROCESS

At Burr, Pilger & Mayer, the mentoring process starts with the interview. When BPM invites a job candidate to a second round of interviews, it exposes the candidate to all staff levels and firm departments.

For example, if an entry-level candidate is interviewing for an assurance position, they'll meet with partners and managers from other parts of the firm, such as consulting, tax and wealth management.

"We want to make sure that people know there is an opportunity to transfer to other departments within the firm," says Alfie Adona, BPM's career development manager.

BPM also exposes all interns to all of the firm's departments to provide them a well-rounded picture of what BPM is all about.

When Daniel Figueredo, CPA, joined BPM in 2003 in an entry-level auditing position, he was assigned what the firm calls a "cruise director," a staff member a few years his senior that helped him get acquainted with his new surroundings and with the firm's voluntary mentoring program.

New hires, around the time of their first performance evaluation, can then choose a mentor at the firm. Figueredo chose Nenette Stegmann, CPA, a manger in his office.

"She's helped me to set my career goals, and we talk about what areas I'd like to specialize in," Figueredo says. "She's always making sure that I get the right experiences."

Stegmann then introduced Figueredo to the firm's exchange program through CPA Associates, a global network of accounting firms BPM participates with. One aspect of that network is an exchange program whereby accounting firms from other countries exchange staff. Figueredo hopes to work for an accounting firm in Australia next year as part of the program.

Jeffrey Glick, CPA, joined BPM in 2002 as a supervisor after stints with other firms. He chose Sandy Murray, a tax partner in the San Francisco office, as his mentor.

"We practiced in similar areas, and I felt a good personality connection with him," Glick says. "We discuss career development and direction, and he's somebody I can bounce ideas off of and get constructive criticism."

Through Murray's guidance, Glick decided to serve on the board of directors of Boys Hope/Girls Hope, a local not-for-profit. Glick also joined CalCPA and is co-chair of the San Francisco Chapter's PFP and Estate Planning committees.

Recently, Glick has been identified as a potential partner at the firm, and is working with Murray to better understand the process of making partner.

BPM also recently started a program called Advocacy wherein everybody hired in a six-month period becomes part of a group of all staff levels and disciplines. The group is run by one of the firm's partners and a representative from human resources. The group meets monthly to go through fundamentals of working at the firm.

That group is then divided into two: Senior managers and above enter a formal program, receiving one-on-one mentoring with another senior manager or partner, and those below that level enter groups of 10 that meet with senior partners six times a year to discuss their career development goals.

BPM has also tied staff development--which includes recruiting and mentoring--into the performance evaluation of its managers.

"If staff development and career development is not part of a partner's job description, then you won't have a successful program," says Steve Mayer, the firm's managing partner.

Whether formal or informal--or targeting new hires or senior staff groomed for partnership--mentoring programs can be tailored for accounting firms of all sizes.

Jerry Ascierto is CalCPA's managing editor. You can reach him at [e-mail].