You have followed the practical suggestions in Parts 1 and 2 of Diversity: Attracting & Retaining Tax Professionals. As a result, your department is more "diverse".
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The big question now, is "is there something special I need to do to retain a minority tax professional?"¹ In Part 3 we will discuss steps you can take to retain minority tax professionals. Most minority tax searches require the help of a recruiting firm due to the extremely low supply and high demand for these professionals. The average cost for such search? Between 25% to 33% of the professional's first year salary and bonus. For example, |
a position that pays $100,000 total cash compensation, the recruiting fees would be between $25,000 to 33,000.
Keep in mind that this does not cover the relocation costs to move this person and their family. Of course, these costs could be associated with any new hire, but because of the market dynamics associated with minority candidates there is an increased likelihood of relocation.
When you add in employee development costs, one can see that retention is critical.
Listed below are 6 areas to focus on in to increase the probability that minority tax professionals in your department will want to stay in your department or at a minimum, with your organization. The six areas we have identified are: compensation, performance management, mentoring, growth opportunities, professional networking, and department integration.
Compensation
Employees want to be fairly compensated for their work. This is especially true for minority professionals who statistically have been paid less for similar positions.
Consider performing a compensation analysis to ensure that minority employees are fairly compensated according to their peers within and outside the organization . You should also take steps to ensure that compensation levels are commensurate with performance and experience. They should not be tied to arbitrarily set merit increases, which might be compounded by a poorly negotiated initial salary. Maintaining pay equity in the department is a great first step to retaining minority tax professionals.
Performance Management
Retain minority employees by showing them that they are valued; both as an individual and as part of the minority group. A consistent track record of promoting across the employee spectrum and a fair and honest approach in dealing with the individual during reviews will go a long way in "proving" the commitment to a diverse tax department.
Any performance management tool put in place should at a minimum meet the following several targeted areas:
- Align individual performance expectations with overall strategic business plans and objectives.
- Any performance objective must be measurable (what, when and how much).
- Objectives should be prioritized in order of business need and importance.
- Identify skills and knowledge areas needed to enhance performance.
- Allow for feedback throughout the year.
Mentoring
If asked, most successful executives will tell you that they owe a large part of their success to their mentors. Thus, it should come as no surprise that mentorship is a crucial component to retaining any employee, and in particular minority employees. As we mentioned in Part 2 of this article, a minority employee may or may not have unique mentoring needs. What may occur to the employee is that their needs/concerns might be unique because they are a minority.
Putting a mentoring program in place, or at a minimum a support mechanism to have concerns addressed in a timely manner will increase the probability of retention. This mentoring program should address both internal issues within the organization and external retention issues. Under the internal issues, the organization should ensure that employees are actively engaged in projects and assignments such that these experiences will lead to growth within their current position and make them competitive candidates for future positions. Thus, the employee does not feel as if he or she is "just working a 9 to 5 job." As to the external issues, the mentoring program should address reasons that might cause the employee to leave the organization (i.e., other organizations are better for minorities because they not only hire qualified minorities, they also have a good track record of promoting them). Both issues can be easily integrated into the same mentoring program.
Growth Opportunity
In Part 1 of this article we described three types of employees - trailblazers, builders and sustainers.
No matter which group an employee falls in, most will like to know "what is the next step?" "Where do I see myself in the next 2 - 3 years, and more importantly, where does this organization see me?"
Your job is to make sure that the employee is made aware of opportunities as they arise. This can be accomplished as part of the performance management tool discussed earlier.
In some cases it may be that the best opportunity for the minority professional is outside of the tax department-particularly where upward mobility within the tax department may not be available for some time. For example, there may be opportunities in the general legal department or in a business unit. These opportunities will only strengthen the professionals understanding of your organization and industry. The professional should not be penalized for making such a move. Instead, a career plan should focus on how and when the professional will be able to use these experiences outside of the tax department to return to the department at a later time.
Professional Networking
There are many professional organizations that tax professionals can join. Some of these organizations cater specifically to minority groups. For example, the National Association of Accounting of Black Accountants, and the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance & Accounting just to name a few. In many cases, minority professionals belong to both the "traditional" organizations as well as minority organizations.
Where possible, you should encourage the minority employee's participation in both minority organizations and traditional organizations. It will provide growth, networking opportunities for the employee and the organization, as well as expand for your organization the talent pool to recruit form.
Department Integration
Any newly hired employee who joins a new organization wants to feel like part of the team from day one. This is especially true for minority tax professionals who may be skeptical about whether they are being truly accepted as part of the team. The minority tax professional will only stay if they feel accepted.
Your job is to put in place and strongly support group activities and functions that will help facilitate the integration of the newly hired minority tax professional into department life.
Some suggested activities to start the bonding: (1) attend a sporting event; (2) picnic at a local park with team building activities; (3) a regular department lunch where people can talk about current projects they are working on.
Retention
So there you have it. Your retention success will be greatly improved with a program that focuses on:
- Fair compensation
- Performance management
- Mentoring
- Growth opportunities
- Professional networking
- Department integration.
Moreover, all of your efforts during the attraction and development phase will go a long way in making sure that minority professionals are actually retained - which should be the end goal of any overall recruiting program.
