Google the terms high-performance workforce, high-performance culture, or high-performance employee and you’ll get links to a variety of blog posts and articles that tell you how to get there. In the end, most of them end up telling you that you need:

• An environment of trust
• Discipline
• A clear strategy
• Aligned goals throughout your organization
• Clear communication on performance results and goals
• Training and development plans for all employees
• A system of regular feedback for employees

Most of these articles also tell us that companies with a high-performance culture get better results and have happier customers. Probably happier employees too!

While the list seems fairly straightforward, engraining all these things in your culture can be a challenge. The question is – can we afford not to?

This issue is particularly critical for professional services firms, where their employees are their main asset. In a business built on an individual’s skills and qualifications, as well as their relationships, when an employee leaves, the firm also risk losing the clients that employee served. And replacing that employee is becoming increasingly challenging with the growing talent shortage.

Two of our customers, both accounting firms, provide great examples of how professional services organizations can build a culture of performance.

One of O’Sullivan Creel’s strategic goals was to go paperless, and they saw an opportunity to improve their employee performance appraisal process, which employees felt was “cumbersome and lacked any connection with the success of the business.” With the help of a web-based employee performance and talent management system, they were able to make productivity gains. They also found that their new system actually helped them better understand the strengths and weaknesses of their workforce, so they could better manage promotions, raises and training. They’ve seen a significant increase in employee satisfaction and productivity, and built a high performance culture.

Clark Nuber was focused on remaining an employer of choice and they needed a way to help them manage employee achievement on a day-to-day basis, while maximizing billable time. But their unique reporting structure and need to collect feedback from many sources posed a challenge. Technology has proven to be a strategic enabler for the firm, with high-performing employees being able to keep things up-to-date and ensure they’re on track to meet their goals. All employees get a complete and accurate picture of their performance thanks to the multi-rater feedback that’s built into each review process. The solution is helping with retention and enabling them to take talent management to the next level.

Are your employees getting the direction, feedback and development they need to work at their full potential?