We realized long ago, that in order to serve our clients and team members well, we must have a culture of excellence built on the foundation of the personal character of our firm's leadership. With a growing staff of more than 120 team members - many of whom are out of the office on a consistent basis - we developed PKF University to balance the effects of our firm's phenomenal growth. This continuing education program is an effective way to communicate how the firm's success ultimately relies on each individual's success. Our internal, accredited program, PKF University, further enhances team members' interpersonal, management, leadership and technical skills. We also use this award-winning program to serve as a catalyst for building new paradigms, and as a forum for rejuvenating our thriving culture.
The University addresses these nine core objectives:
- Communicate the firm's vision and core values such as "people are the source of our success."
- Create a sense of team spirit and firm pride.
- Serve as a platform for sharing our award-winning culture.
- Develop a platform for sharing an award-winning culture.
- Educate team members about the firm's service offerings and how they can individually contribute to the firm's success.
- Develop team members who are interpersonally and technically professionals and leaders.
- Extend our training and development program to strategic clients, referral partners and prospects.
- Provide a less disruptive avenue for accountants to fulfill annual continuing education requirements.
- Champion and lead other PKF offices around the country with continuing education coordination initiatives.
We've taken a comprehensive approach to developing our program strategy by establishing a PKF University Task Force to create our curriculum and schedule. The Task Force, comprised of team members from each practice discipline, develops a calendar that allows team members and outside participants to plan for educational sessions. While a current bi-monthly calendar is established, it is flexible enough to adapt to current topics as they affect our clients. For example, we used this forum to develop casualty loss ideas during the flood of 2001. The Task Force meets regularly to address current topics of interest and issues. The PKF vision and mission statements are the heart of our University.
Like an onion, each layer of the University adds to a particular core value within the firm. Examples of our programs include:
- "The Art of Winning Referrals" - teaches how we can network and build business for ourselves, while at the same time helping our clients and prospects grow and prosper.
- "Discovering Untapped Markets" - as trusted business advisors to our clients, this program presents tools to assist our team members in identifying avenues for growth opportunities for our clients. A course also was extended to interested clients, where it was extremely well received.
- "Understanding Financial Statements for Non-financial People" - teaches financial statement basics for client employees who need to understand them, but do not have a financial background.
- "The Benefits of Cost Segregation Studies" - an on-the-road PKF University course taught in affiliation with real estate divisions of financial institutions for their clients. This course talks about the benefits of certain depreciation techniques for clients. Beyond promoting PKF Texas, this is a big value-add for these professionals with their clients.
- Departmental programs that provide information on the new initiatives each of the practice groups are rolling out.
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