Ty Beasley, the new chief talent officer at RSM US, describes the approach modern accounting firms need to take to recruiting and retention, starting with the "talent experience."
Transcription:
Dan Hood (
Welcome to On the Air with Accounting Today. I'm editor in chief Dan Hood. Accounting is a profession that's full of challenging roles, but these days by far, the hardest role has to be that, of trying to recruit and retain staff in the midst of a talent shortage that's been going on for more than a decade. That's the challenge we're going to talk about today with Ty Beasley, who was recently installed as chief talent officer at RSM US. Ty, thanks for joining us.
Ty Beasley (
Hey, thanks for having me. Dan,
Dan Hood (
I don't know if they told you about the huge war war for talent when they said, 'Hey, we want you to be chief talent officer?' but it is a very challenging moment. What do you see as the big challenges that face firms on the talent front?
Ty Beasley (
Yeah, it certainly is a challenge, Dan and many other professions. The biggest challenges in our space is really a attracting and retaining top talent. That's exactly what it is. And in the accounting space specifically, that's particularly challenging as we continue to see fewer and fewer accounting majors. And so those numbers are very apparent and they're drastically reducing. And so other firms industries, technology companies, the government, they're all competing for the same talent that RSM wants to attract. So that's why we, Dan, we're expanding and widening our lens. So traditionally, most of our people joined us from the four year universities as an experienced hire as well from another firm. And those models, they just don't work on its own anymore. So now we're looking to community colleges, for example, looking at talented people in the gig economy as yet another example, and other less traditional sources and channels to attract talent.
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Now from a retention standpoint, we're taking a hard look at how do we flatten the peaks and valleys that are typically inherent, specifically our tax and our audit practices to allow people more balance and less burnout. And speaking of retention, Dan, that that's the telltale sign of success when you're facing these challenges around attracting and retaining talent. With that said, though, I really want to redefine what retention means. So I look at it not just as the longevity of employees, but also the retention of their loyalty. So the bottom line is people will leave. You're not going to have a hundred percent retention. And when they do though, we want them to leave as ambassadors of RSM, we want their loyalty intact such that they recommend others to our firm such that they recommend RSM to their new employer and such that they perhaps boomerang back to RSM. So that's retention as well.
Dan Hood (
That's that long term view of retention that is not many firms have taken that, but pioneering firms are definitely looking at you to say we can't keep you necessarily, but we want you at least to have to speak well of us wherever you go. And maybe you'll come back later on. That's great. That expansion of the talent pool you're reaching for with community colleges and other areas is when we see like I said, pioneering firms starting to adapt. And I think you've given us a great sense of a big chunk, at least of ours. I'm just human capital strategy. But are there other elements to it? Is there a broader picture?
Ty Beasley (
Yeah absolutely. So to be successful as a professional services firm, you need highly engaged people with the right skills to serve the ever-changing needs of our clients. So we have a new c e o and managing partner, Brian Becker. He has this vision to transform RSM into a digital firm that provides audit, tax and consulting services to the middle market, which is a compelling vision for a firm like ours that identifies as an accounting firm. So to make that happen though, from a talent perspective, our strategy is to drive an unrivaled inclusive culture and talent experience. And by doing so, we will attract and retain the talent we need to provide that excellent experience for our clients, as well as providing our people with rewarding careers. Now, that's obviously easier said than done, which is why as a talent function, we're focused on not just simply supporting the business, but enabling the success of the business.
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Not just simply providing compliance services but being first choice advisors to the business through the lens of talent. So we are strategically integrating four functions as part of our strategy. So talent acquisition, human resources, learning and development, and our culture, diversity and inclusion group under one unified talent team. Now we have strong teams today and they will be even stronger as we align them under a common purpose, which by the way is to be a talent function of first choice advisors that enable the success of the enterprise with a focus though on optimizing that talent experience. Alright,
Dan Hood (
Right. Now you've mentioned talent experience a couple of times and it's an interesting, it's a phrase I haven't heard often before. You hear a lot about client experience in managing the client experience, but not a great deal about the talent experience. Maybe you dive a little bit more into that. What will that look like?
Ty Beasley (
Yeah, so that's a great question, Dan. In today's world, we have to think about our people not just as employees, but as humans. So the whole person has to have a compelling experience with the firm while at work, but also while not at work. So the RSM experience extends to the personal life of our people in terms of giving them the flexibility to even have a personal life and then having an environment where they can be themselves. So not just their work self, but their whole self. So we say, be you at RSM and the ability to be you and who you are is an experience really in and of itself. So we continue to develop an inclusive talent experience where that whole person can have a career that is complimentary to who they are as a person. So now to do this successfully though, we have to have the right culture, and at RSM, our culture is our differentiator. So we regularly hear from people who join us from other firms. For example, that culture, our culture and our firm's leadership commitment to our culture is what makes RSM special. So we believe in something called, we call it the five Cs, that's our people are caring, they're curious, they're courageous, they're collaborative, critical thinking thinkers. And so these are our desired behaviors actually, and they positively impact our culture and ultimately impact the talent experience.
Dan Hood (
Gotcha. Now, you had also mentioned talent development a little bit earlier. Is that also part of the sort of talent experience? I mean, it's one thing, it is a great thing to hear accounting firms talking about. You're able to be yourself at the firm, particularly from an inclusion perspective. But there's also degree, right? If you're an accounting firm, we want you to be not just yourself, but yourself better with more skills and a clearer idea of your career trajectory. Is that part of that the talent experience as well?
Ty Beasley (
Oh, absolutely. The development of people, the upskilling of people, the opportunity to give them a career path that's tied to your investment in their development is critical. And it is a retention play. And like we talked about earlier, Dan, not just a retention play in terms of, Hey, you stay with RSM from the time you graduate college, join a firm to the time you retire. But it's also a retention play in terms of, hey, they're loyalty. So I am a strong believer in the fact that everyone in the firm at any level or tenure can make a profound impact on our clients and colleagues if they embrace what I call leading from where you are. And so leading from where you are is a leadership development concept that says, Hey, you don't have to wait to get a title to be a leader.
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You don't have to wait to have a certain amount of longevity in the firm to be a leader. Everyone has the D N A traits of a leader that if you just tap into it, regardless of what level you are, you can make an impact in the firm. So at RSM, we are doubling down on our focus on development for our people, not just their technical skills, but their digital skills as well as their leadership acumen. So with respect to the digital skills, Dan, the needs of our clients are constantly evolving along with the tools and technologies we use to serve them. So providing new technologies to improve efficiency and accuracy that not only enhances our people's talent experience, but it also frees them up to provide more human insights and more perspectives and more input like that value creation that we bring to clients.
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But in addition to that, our focus is on leadership development and we are committed to providing our people with those leadership skills to be first choice advisors to our clients earlier in their career than ever before. So you don't have to wait to be a manager or a director, a partner to be developed around your leadership. Ackerman, we want to start developing those skills right now regardless of your level or tenure in the firm. And then these power skills, I'm going to call use that term power skills, these power skills in addition to your technical knowledge is what sets our people apart. And then also, Dan, to enhance our development culture, we are standing up an internal coaching function and this is going to support our people's growth both personally and professionally. So when you think about development, so you have training and development, you have performance management, and then you have with us the addition of a coaching framework that's going to position our people for success both in their R S M career and outside of the walls of RSM in their personal lives. Again, that all ties back to that whole person talent experience.
Dan Hood (
Excellent. I wanna talk more about all of this and particularly a little bit more about the leadership and I love the idea of leading from where you are but we're just going to take a quick break. Alright. And we're back with Ty Beasley of RSM, talking about their human capital strategy and the different aspects of that, the challenges the firms face and the response that RSM is making in terms of all the different attributes of recruiting and retention. We're talking about a bunch of different things. One of the ones that fascinated me was your notion of leading from where you are. And in addition to the skills, right, teaching people the skills they need to be leaders, cuz that is a set of skills that can be taught, but that often isn't. So it's good to hear that the people are teaching it. I was curious about when you talk about being a leader from where you are apart from the skills you might need to do that, maybe you can talk a little bit more about what that means mean, does that mean or describe it just a little bit more in depth?
Ty Beasley (
Yeah, so leading from where you are simply means that hey, you can actually wait to a certain point, a certain time in your career to start to execute on leadership traits or you can do so now. And so if you think about your traditional leadership development programs, for example, they usually start at a certain point in time for people. So it's like, okay, you've been at the firm five years, six years, or reached a certain milestone in your career. Got to the manager level, okay, say now we're going to flip the switch on this leadership development program so that we can start to hone in and sharpen your leadership skills, right? But at RSM, what we're saying is, no, no, no, no. Early on in your career, in fact even within the first six months to 12 months, there needs to be an opportunity for us to start to help you develop your leadership skills.
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Now there are leadership skills at what in our environment would be an associate level. There are leadership skills there early on in your career. There's also leadership skills at the director and partner level. They look different, but they're still leadership skills. So at RSM what we're saying is, Hey, we want you to lead from where you are. You don't have to wait to be a manager, you don't have to wait to be a partner. You can lead right where you are. And what we're going to do is invest in you early on in terms of getting you involved in leadership development programs so that when you get to the point where you're taking on leadership roles, you already have developed over the years the acumen, you need to actually be effective as a leader.
Dan Hood (
So you're sort of front loading those skills. You're not waiting until they get to the point where they need, which is great because wait, like I said, way too many people don't get leadership training at all. But if they do, it's often well after the point where they really needed, needed to display it. That's great. Excellent. We talked about, and one element of that ability to be who you are at wherever you're at a firm or at wherever you happen to work is there's an inclusion element of that. And that sort of leads me, I'm curious about an area that people are talking a lot about at accounting firms and for the profession as a whole, which is diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I'm just curious how that fits into your overall talent strategy.
Ty Beasley (
Yeah, that's a great question, Dan. So well in inclusion in and of itself, it's a key component of RSM'S talent strategy. That's why we were very intentional to state in our strategy that we drive an unrivaled inclusive culture. We specifically call it out just like that. So talent and inclusion, they go hand in hand. They are truly inseparable and you can't optimize the talent experience if the optimization of it is for some, but not for all. And you can't build loyalty if the environment is not conducive to people actually giving it to you. So that's why we strategically aligned our inclusion team under the broader talent umbrella. So we have 12 affinity groups and nearly 90% of our owners are members of at least one of those groups. So in addition to our DEI-focused programs we also embed DEI into all of our talent activities from recruiting to onboarding, to training.
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And I'll tell you this then as a point of note, we refer to diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI, we refer to that internally as CDI culture, diversity and inclusion because we believe our culture is a huge part of the inclusion equation and it's a differentiator in the marketplace. So we also believe it's the culture that allows us to integrate our CDI team into our talent function as diversity and inclusion become more and more a part of the fabric of the firm. So the key here is not that your CDI efforts are something separate, the key here is that it's part of the fabric of the firm. And so this integration we're going through in terms of bringing our CDI group into the broader talent umbrella just simply fits into that vision. So people stay with our firm, Dan, because of our culture, we can recruit talent and we can give them rewarding experiences, but if it's not in an inclusive environment where they can be who they are and they can work on things that they're passionate about, then loyalty will not take hold. And so again we are intentional about inclusion in our strategy.
Dan Hood (
Excellent. Alright. We've talked a lot about RSM. I want to pivot a little bit and talk about you because among other things, you have a strong background in consulting and advisory work as opposed to the sort of more traditional human capital HR background that you might expect from someone who's named chief talent officer. Maybe you can tell us just one, share with our audience a little bit about your background and how you came up in the firm but then also talk about you. Does that give you a different perspective? Does that having come from a different background than a standard HR background, does that give you a different approach to talent?
Ty Beasley (
You know what, Dan? Yes, it does give me a different perspective. So I believe in the power of diversity of thought. I really do. Which one angle to that is having a background that is uniquely positioned in a function where that background is not really prevalent. So the diversity of thought I will bring to the talent organization at RSM by nature of my background coming up in the business in the consulting line of business can be really impactful. With that said, I've always had a passion for the people side of the business. I've been here over 25 years and I've always had my hands in the talent cookie jar. As the nor Texas market leader, I was responsible for office culture and the talent element to that role is huge. As a consulting leader for talent, I worked very closely with our learning and professional development team to provide our people with skill building opportunities, whether that be through traditional education, whether that be on the job experiences or even exposure to mentors and coaches.
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I've been deeply involved in our inclusion efforts as a member of the firm's Inclusion Council, and I've been the sponsor for culture and diversity for the consulting line of business. Also, a point of note, I just completed a three year term on RS M'S board of directors. So with all of that said Dan, I know the business of RSM, I know where we have opportunities, I know where our leaders and teams face challenges as they work to serve our clients on a day-to-day basis. And I am passionate about the entire concept of talent and have always been throughout my tenure here at the firm. So we have tremendous professionals in our human resources group, a learning professional development group, recruiting our inclusion teams. They are phenomenal and I'll look forward to working with them to enable all of the people at RSM to have an unrivaled inclusive talent experience. And my background especially growing up in the business and consulting. It's going to provide that additional flavor and flare that ties to the firm strategy on where we want to go into the future.
Dan Hood (
Fantastic. Alright, well this is great. I don't know if there's anything we should be expecting or what do you final thoughts of what people should expect over your as you begin to grab what we said, there's tremendous issues around staffing and talent, but it sounds like you've got a lot of them thought through anything people should be expecting from
Ty Beasley (
You. Yeah, I mean, just a lot of excitement, just a lot of innovation, just a lot of new ideas and thoughts and just a lot of different channels for attracting talent. It's kinda like everything we just talked about, Daniel. Again, it is a challenge for every organization out there and we're all looking for the same people. And so at RSM, we are going to be very much so focused on expanding our channels to attract talent. And then once we attract that talent, doing all we can to give them the experience of a lifetime. And again, Dan, it's all about we understand we really want to retain everybody, right? A hundred percent. We really want to do that, but we also want it to be such an experience that if we cannot retain you physically at RSM, your loyalty to the firm remains. That's what we're after.
Dan Hood (
Excellent. All right. Well, it sounds like a great plan. Ty Beasley of RSM, thank you so much for joining us.
Ty Beasley (
Thank you, Dan.
Dan Hood (
And thank you all for listening. This episode of On the Air was produced by Accounting Today with audio production by Kevin Parise. Rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform and see the rest of our content on accountingtoday.com. Thanks again to our guest, and thank you for listening.