Author: Jacob Barton, Staff Accountant
This spring, our staff, seniors, and supervisors had the opportunity to participate in a “Pathway to Partnership” information session. We had an outside facilitator help lead the meeting and two partners at the Firm sat in on a panel. This was an informative event that helped all levels of staff see the needed requirements to becoming a partner.
One of the great issues in public accounting is leadership development. It is anticipated that many young staff will advance quickly in their careers. This training was aimed at helping staff understand the expectations to advance in their careers and to get them excited to become a partner.
A few of my takeaways were:
- Hours requirement One misconception was that there was a minimum requirement of hours to be worked in order to become a partner at Brickley DeLong. While hours worked may have a correlation to the knowledge of the job, this is not a requirement to become a partner. In fact, outside of tax season, many of the partners at our Firm do not work over 40 hours in a given week.
- Compensation Another big takeaway from the pathway to partnership was the average compensation for partners in our market at a similar sized firm. Transparency was appreciated as it gave staff something to look forward to.
- Benefits It was refreshing to hear from the partner’s perspective what they liked about becoming partner. While the reasoning may have been different from person to person, it was refreshing to hear from the other side, what exactly they liked from their role.
- Timeline Another topic that was touched on the pathway to partnership was the timeline to becoming a partner. While there are expectations and minimum times required in certain staff roles before promotions, there was no limit on time to becoming a partner.
Overall, the pathway to partnership was a worthwhile experience. The pathway to partnership pointed out some misconceptions to become partner and gave staff a better idea of how they can advance in their careers.