Episode 113: The Importance of Staff Review Meetings

Feeling overwhelmed by the constant grind and lacking time for meaningful team interactions? Imagine if making time for regular staff reviews could transform your practice from hectic chaos into a well-oiled machine. 

On this episode of The Wize Guys Podcast, we unpack the insights from Dr. Stephen Covey's game-changing principles to highlight how prioritising what's important over what's merely urgent can revolutionize your accounting or bookkeeping firm. 

Discover some actionable strategies for evolving from the traditional, ineffective annual review to a dynamic system of monthly or quarterly one-on-ones using innovative tools.

Also, we explore how these regular check-ins, grounded in goal review and KPI feedback, ensure that your team stays aligned and your business remains on course. Learn how to implement a cascading structure where the CEO engages with senior client managers, who in turn lead their own teams, creating a consistent and cohesive workflow. 

Don't miss this episode if you're eager to break free from the busyness trap and foster a more self-sustaining, effective practice. We'd love to hear your thoughts—head to the chat feature and share how frequently you conduct staff reviews in your own firm!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:23 What's the biggest trap in accounting and bookkeeping practices?
• 0:57 Reasons why you should conduct 1-on-1 meetings
• 3:15 How to create your meeting agenda
• 4:43 How often should you have staff review meetings

Transcript

Wize Mentoring: 0:02

From W ize M entoring is T he W ize G uys P odcast, a show about accounting and bookkeeping practice owners and the many stories, lessons, and tips from their experience of transitioning from a time- poor practice to a business that runs without them.

Brenton Ward: 0:23

Would you mind touching on that in a little bit more detail? I know we were speaking just before we came on here and typically the biggest excuse for not doing these meetings is just being too busy. Yeah, which, we can all fall into the trap of using that excuse. But talk to us a little bit about getting out of that trap.

Jamie Johns: 0:44

Yeah, look, I think the biggest trap for accountants and bookkeeping firms and their owners and the leaders is the fact that they just get too busy and we all tend to focus on what's urgent and important. And even coming back to this book, D r Stephen Covey which is a book that Ed says changed his life and the way he worked is the fact that if we get too busy, we can forget to have these conversations, and these reviews are about conversations that you don't normally have, and so when you move from that, you know urgent and important to not urgent and important. That's what staff reviews are, that's what team performance reviews are. While they're not urgent, they're very important and because of their nature, they can be put in, they can be put on the back burner. I'll do that next month or I'll do that next year.

Jamie Johns: 1:41

So the biggest single trap is getting too busy to do these and is getting too busy to schedule these conversations in, and I've seen it, I've experienced it myself.

Jamie Johns: 1:51

So that'd be the first critical point actually, to make is don't be too busy and schedule these in, and the more modern approach is to use systems like Office 5.

Jamie Johns: 2:03

Thanks recently we've sort of been looking at that, and I know a lot of firms have looked at Office 5 and also we use a system called TinyPulse and they have these modules built into them, called they're called different things but one, for example, is called Coach and it's important that you try and move your firm to this more modern approach of either catching up and doing your one-on-ones either monthly or quarterly, because what you don't want in a broad context is you don't just want to sit down and have one meeting a year out of a whole year or even six monthly to see how someone's performed, because you know it's easy to go off track, even in one month. d t d d d i o

Jamie Johns: 2:46

Thanks like Ed says you can have the firm, you can have the plane on autopilot, but what happens is the practical, W ize people, they just drift off, they slowly drift off and then if you're having wizementoring. com/ a month or even quarterly, right throughout the hierarchy, so from the senior client managers down, it keeps that firm, it keeps that plane on track and on target versus having once a year. So yeah.

Brenton Ward: 3:15

BThanks I'd be interested to hear, actually and get a gauge from everyone listening in as to how often you're currently doing your own staff reviews. So if you wouldn't mind finding that chat feature, it'd be great to hear whether it is something that you're doing on an annual basis at the moment or a little bit more regularly. But, um, if you could let us know that, that'd be great it's a great question. That would be great for everyone to answer that. But you, you know, I really think best practice and what I do at my own firm at Sky, is we have, you know, I mentioned these one-on-ones and it's critical in the one-on-ones where people might ask me well, what do you do in the one-on-ones? Now, the one-on-ones you simply review their goals. So for a senior client manager, it's review what I would call the Fab Five goals. You've got your senior client manager, you've got your different team members there, and so you need to be prepared, when you do have your one-on-ones whether it's monthly or quarterly to have what are you reviewing? What are their KPIs? They're getting feedback of how they're going.

Jamie Johns: 4:20

So again, this comes back. I want to emphasise the point to have your monthly one-on-ones from top down. So myself, W ize the CEO, I would have my monthly one-on-ones with the senior client managers. The wizementoring. com/ then in turn have their one-on-ones with their team members, and that's how it should work. But again, you don't want to i have these meetings just once a year or even six monthly, because, as I said, the plane gets off track.

Jamie Johns: 4:52

And, brenton, this is all about managing expectations as well, because someone might think themselves that they're going fantastic in their job. Because someone might think themselves that they're going fantastic in their job and, realistically, the dashboard or the KPO are showing they really aren't going that well, we've got to manage people's expectations and help them keep on track around their performance, because otherwise sometimes team members will live in a delusionary world. I think they're going fantastic but they're not, and so we all crave feedback. You've got to build that feedback in, and so, if I come back, brenton to the annual performance appraisal is then a consolidation of all the one-on-ones you've had in the year.

Wize Mentoring: 5:33

Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, please remember to subscribe and leave us a five-star review For more practical W ize tips on how to build a business that runs without you, head over to wizementoring. com/ podcast to download a free copy of the Accountant's 20-Hour Workweek Playbook. We've included a link in the show notes below. See you on the next episode.