Perfecting the Basics

 

After the dot-com crash, the Enron outrage and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a good CPA was hard to come by. Those who were in the industry had either left for IT opportunities or made a bid for investment banking.

Clark Nuber, with a half-a-century of experience, had to find new ways to make itself attractive to graduates from the nation’s top business schools. In responding to that challenge over the last nine years, something more fundamental happened. The accounting firm, a respectable but unremarkable midsize Bellevue business, gradually came to be regarded by its peers as one of the most innovative companies in the industry.

Instead of talking about high growth and off-the-chart profit margins, recruiters told university professors that Clark Nuber was about slow, stable growth. They told students they wanted employees who were capable and responsible, and that the company would welcome them into a culture that focuses on helping others and encouraging ideas.

The approach worked. Bright, new prospects were hired (another 10 will be added in 2009) and introduced to their own personal mentors. What does that mean? Each new hire is assigned an upper-level employee who works with the new person for a year. These teams may talk about anything from clients to questions about process and career goals.

The new employee also gets an interim buddy, someone who can help with technical and training issues. And then, finally, for their first job, new employees are partnered with yet another senior staffer.

“The learning curve here is much faster,” says CEO David Katri, who has led the firm since 2000. By cultivating good will among employees, the firm strengthens communication, improves efficiency and breeds innovation, he says.

Clark Nuber helps employees manage their careers by encouraging ideas such as the in-house development of an application which provides clients with a central repository of data that more than 400 clients access regularly.

The company also encourages workers to develop new humanitarian programs. If a proposal is new and sustainable and will