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For years, annual performance reviews have been the standard way to evaluate employees. Usually, these evaluations take place at approximately the same time each year. They often discuss issues from the distant past then try to address future goals which are not brought up again until the following annual review. This dated process is static and useless when motivating and engaging staff. With the competitive talent market in the project-based world, firms need to actively nurture and develop their staff using continuous performance management. Here are some key components of a continuous performance management program.

More Than Just a Check-In

Continuous performance management involves more than just an occasional manager “check-in” with employees. It goes much further by incorporating input from other team members such as project leaders, human resources and other co-workers. With continuous feedback, employees can be kept abreast of how project milestones are being met while also examining outcomes that don’t go exactly the anticipated way. Furthermore, using technology, these frequent conversations between team members become an easy occurrence.

Goal Management that Flows

Another part of continuous performance management entails the fluid management of employee goals. Hiccups and successes should not be stagnant but should be evaluated as they occur during an employee’s tenure at your firm. Growth occurs constantly and employees meet their goals in various time increments so managing these goals should be just as fluid. This adaptable management of goals benefits the firm since project requirements change as well. Therefore, goals should be altered as needed rather than absolutely set in stone.

Clear Development Plans

Continuous performance management also incorporates career development plans for employees. From getting new hires productive at onboarding to upskilling or reskilling them several years down the road, development plans should be authentic and intentional. When employees have the opportunity to drive their careers, they become more engaged with their firms. As a result, this engagement leads to more productive projects which will benefit the firm in the end.

Transform Your Performance Management Process

Based on a SHRM/Globoforce Survey, a whopping 89% of HR leaders agreed that continuous feedback had a positive impact on their businesses. However, a Gallup study showed that only 19% of millennials surveyed said they got routine feedback with only 17% revealing that it was meaningful. The project-based workforce of the present and future wants authenticity and autonomy from its employer. Yet, the same workforce desires a way to showcase its skills and advance. Continuous Performance Management offers firms the ability to fully utilize the best talent, adapt to changing needs and ensure they grow with the firm.

We’ve heard a lot about the customer experience (CX) and its impact upon professional services firms. However, another experience that is just as significant to firm success is the employee experience (EX). The employee experience involves not only firm culture, but also the means used by firms to encourage employee success. Let’s take a look at what can be used to ensure an exceptional employee experience.

Exceptional Onboarding

It is important to set the stage for a positive new hire experience. Therefore, the onboarding process needs to be effective and efficient in getting employees to the point of being productive as soon as possible. In order to avoid overwhelming orientation paperwork, there should be an online onboarding portal which can capture all relevant new hire information. For example, solutions like Deltek Talent Management offer such a portal. Additionally, there should be a person assigned to each new hire to provide guidance and resources needed for a smooth transition into the workplace.

Performance Management and Career Development

Employees need not only independence to do their jobs, but also room for growth. Another key feature offered by a solution like Deltek Talent Management is continuous performance management. Employee goals should be managed constantly giving them a chance to meet goals in realistic time frames. Both employees and managers can then see when those goals are met and what the next steps to take would be. For the future, employees need to see what upskills or reskills are needed for a transition into a higher or different level position within the firm.

Frequent Internal Communication

Internal communication within a firm not only disseminates significant information, but also helps develop a culture. Employees should feel a sense of community with their firm and be connected to the corporate brand. Providing frequent updates keeps employees in the loop which encourages engagement and productivity. This is particularly true for remote workers. Frequent internal communication will additionally earn employee trust which ensures longevity.

Follow Through on Employee Feedback

Employee feedback can be gleaned in a variety of ways. It could come from a routine feedback survey or even discussions during goal review. No matter where or how employee feedback is obtained, it must be reviewed and acted upon to ensure an exceptional employee experience. Generally, feedback is given because employees want to see changes that will positively impact the firm. Following through on employee feedback thus benefits everyone.

Share Positive Client Feedback

One sure fire way to keep employees motivated is to show how they have positively contributed to their firm. After hours of dedicated work, employees want to see how their projects came to fruition or how the product they sold solved their client’s problems. When employees hear compliments, it boosts confidence and proves that hard work does pay off in the end. Positive client feedback should be shared not only with the employee but across the organization as well.

Employee Experience Affects Employee Engagement

It is a fact that employee engagement directly impacts firm revenue. With an exceptional employee experience, many more employees will stay engaged meaning more success for your firm. Furthermore, those same employees will continue to grow with your firm eventually moving into higher level positions. This will avoid the cost of future top talent recruitment and save your firm money. Start working on improving your employee experience today and let Full Sail Partners know how we can help.

With the recent health crisis of COVID-19 and the need for social distancing, we’ve noticed an uptick in companies’ interest in working from home. Therefore, important questions remain: What departments are feasible to work remotely? What services should be made available? How do you secure such an environment?

Setting up a Home Environment

The first thing you need to consider is if your employees are prepared to work from home? Do they have the necessary resources? Critical gear such adequate hardware and peripherals like full-sized keyboards and local printers may need to be provisioned and adequate internet connectivity both at home sites and the office should be evaluated.

Connecting to Work from Home

How will employees connect to work resources? If you are already using Office 365 or other software as a service then a good bit of the heavy lifting for email, files (SharePoint) as well as availability and collaboration (Teams) is already in place. Deltek Vision is a web based application and making it available remotely is a straightforward evolution our IT consultants can assist with or it can be moved to our Hosting environment. A virtual private network solution whereby each employee creates a connection back to his home office may be required for accessing large CAD or Engineering projects.

A new approach that Full Sail Partners and some of our clients are now using is Server and Desktops as a Service provided by Desktops2go. In this scenario, local desktops and file/licensing servers are hosted in the cloud and remote users simply connect to their workstation from wherever they are, and all workload/file access behaves as if the entire company is working from the same office. This solution also removes a remarkable load from company IT by reducing the need for purchasing high end servers and workstations for staff and provides a predictable monthly IT cost.

Other Considerations

Wide format drawings from a plotter are unlikely to work well from home. However, for drafts, we’ve seen some clients print to PDF, then use Adobe Reader’s ability to print out posterboard tiles until access to the plotters or print shop become available again. Office phones should be forwarded to cellphones or voice mail messages should be checked frequently to stay in contact with critical clients.

Keep Communication Going

From a managerial standpoint, we recommend frequent team and individual staff stand up meetings. Working from home can be disconcerting and isolating for some so additional consideration and contact may help keep morale and productivity up during challenging times. Full Sail Partners has been a virtual company since its inception with everyone working remotely. Please feel free to reach out to us to assist with your work from home needs!

It is well known that clients hire professional services firms because they have a certain expertise and knowledge base. Therefore, it is crucial that employees of professional services firms are able to jump in and immediately handle the requirements of each project brought to the firm. One of the best ways to ensure that firm employees are ready for each new challenge is to have effective training programs. Trainings can range from bringing new hires quickly up to speed on firm expectations to teaching more seasoned employees a new set of skills to fit changing roles. The important piece is to ensure the trainability of these employees. How can firms accomplish this?

Have Strategic Training Process

Each training program should have specific objectives with measurable goals. The audience of the training impacts the approach used as well. Onboarding new hires is of course going to be different than teaching new skills to experienced staff. It is necessary to evaluate which training tools or platforms will be most effective with the varying learners. Also, what means will you use to measure learner knowledge? It is necessary for the firm to get a return on investment from these trainings as they are costly.

Effective Training Content

In order to meet the goals of each training, a structure must be determined. Start by focusing on what is to be accomplished in the training. For new hires, they must be able to digest the overall company policies and requirements plus their individual position responsibilities. Experienced employees are looking to learn new skills in a manner that makes sense and can be easily applied to meet their new expectations. At the end of the training, will these employees have what they need to efficiently do their jobs?

Optimize Engagement

Trainability of employees increases when they are engaged. First of all, choosing the most attractive content encourages engagement such as mixing it up with a variety of media options. Chunking material is a good way to ensure information processing without overwhelming the audience. Finally, offering incentives to learn such as prizes or fun swag during the training will promote engagement. Appealing to the audience improves their trainability.

Ask for Feedback  

When the training sessions are over, it is important to gauge effectiveness. One way could be through reporting features of the training platform used. Another option is to use feedback surveys. Through these methods, employees can show that they got value out of the trainings. Hopefully, they did, but if not, improvements can be made for the future to encourage the best learning environment possible.

Track Employee Training

Being able to quickly see what training a certain employee has received can also improve trainability. For many firms, this is done using a system that doesn’t allow for the employee or their boss to see what trainings have been accomplished. Instead, employers should invest into a HR solution that can track completed training programs and also provide a list of future programs an employee is expected to complete. As a result, employees will more likely be enthusiastic about their future growth at the firm.

Trainability Ensures Productivity

Firms want a strong workforce that can meet client needs, so trainability is essential. When determining the best training programs, think about how to meet the goals of the firm while engaging the audience. The return on investment from high employee productivity is worth the effort put into the pre-planning of training programs.

What exactly is being in the cloud? Well, being in the cloud simply means running your firm’s ERP such as Deltek Vantagepoint or Vision on a remote server. Therefore, your firm does not need to concern itself with having the IT infrastructure on premises. Furthermore, being in the cloud allows your firm to focus on the more important matters of running your successful business leaving the IT responsibilities to the professionals. Let’s check out how your firm benefits from being in the cloud.

Cloud Means Lower IT Costs

Being in the cloud, your firm doesn’t have to worry about staying up to date with hardware and software. Simply stated, there is no need to buy additional servers, Windows operating systems, or SQL licenses if your ERP system is in the cloud. As a result, IT professionals managing your ERP system in the cloud will handle all of this for you so there are no additional costs incurred.

Cloud Security is Top Notch

With cloud management, your data is safe. Cloud professionals handle automatic updates and do multiple daily backups. Malware and virus scanning are also performed regularly. Most importantly, if there is a problem, business continuity is of the utmost importance. Cloud professionals work to ensure that your data is accessible as soon as possible in a disaster situation.

Reduced Burden

Being in the cloud, your firm does not have to deal with handling the setup or deployment of your ERP solution which ensures that it does what you are expecting. Cloud professionals have experience with the product you are using or are thinking of upgrading to in the cloud. Furthermore, a testing environment can be put in place for your firm to get comfortable with the ERP it wants to use. For example, you can try Vantagepoint thoroughly before committing the company to upgrade.

All Cloud Solutions Are Not the Same

Choosing the right partner to host your ERP system in the cloud is extremely important and not all cloud solution providers can be treated equally. Therefore, picking the right cloud partner is essential to ensure your ERP system is properly taken care of by the right professionals. For instance, you want to choose a partner that specializes in the ERP system you want to have hosted in the cloud. This ensures they know the ins and outs, and all the requirements to successfully maintain your ERP system.  

The Cloud Makes Running Your Business More Efficient

Leaving your IT issues to the professionals in the cloud, you can focus on the matters that really drive firm success. Moreover, with secure 24/7 access to your data from anywhere with an internet connection, you can ensure you have what you need when you need it enabling your firm to run efficiently. If your firm does choose to upgrade your ERP from Vision to Vantagepoint, being in the cloud would make it a much easier transition for your firm.

As the life blood of project-based firms, projects must be run efficiently and effectively from start to finish. Fortunately, Deltek Vantagepoint provides the functionality to give project managers more tools to run their projects. Furthermore, Vantagepoint seamlessly integrates your firm’s business processes using an impressive feature suite bringing business development, accounting, resource planning and project management together. By empowering the different roles within firms, projects are better managed and thus more successful. Let’s check out the power of Deltek Vantagepoint.

User Convenience

Deltek Vantagepoint is user-friendly with easy to understand workflows. The browser based Vantagepoint interface offers the ultimate convenience for its users. Additionally, in 2020, there will be an add-on for Outlook. Users will be able to manage Vantagepoint activities within their Outlook calendar. Synchronizing of contact records and smart scheduling will be available to make managing projects even more convenient.

Vantagepoint Project Hub

Project managers can get access to all they need to manage their projects through the project hub in Deltek Vantagepoint. In 2020, the project hub will be expanded to include more functionality. A new interactive Gantt charting tool gives project managers the chance to view their schedules plus change them via a drag and drop option. Also, a scenario planning feature and revenue forecasting tool will be added to the project hub offerings.

Data for Informed Decision Making

In Deltek Vantagepoint, there is a dashboarding framework that ensures project-based firms have proper metrics and information for informed decision making. There will be further expansion of the dashboard to include more visual dashparts in 2020. Currently, the Vantagepoint Intelligence (VI) module is available, but later in the year there will be VI Analysis Cubes which offer pre-calculated data for analysis by anyone in the firm.

Deltek Vantagepoint is Becoming More Powerful in 2020

There will be even more improvements to Deltek Vantagepoint’s functionality throughout 2020 further powering your firm projects. The 3.0 release in late January has already provided some dashboard improvements as well as the Gantt scheduling feature. With the second release, 3.5, the new revenue forecasting tool will be available, as well as the Outlook add-on and Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) to enhance the mobile time and expense app. Finally, the 4.0 release planned for Q4 will focus on resource planning features like scenario planning and more revenue forecasting. Are you new to Deltek and Vantagepoint? Time to learn more!

When it comes to your clients, building strong long-term relationships is priority. The quality of these relationships can make or break your business. Most importantly, clients desire an overall exceptional client experience. Two main factors should be considered when creating the optimal intentional experience for your clients. First, culture is a huge part of how a client feels when interacting with your company. Employees that are motivated and in good spirits provide great client service. Second, having an established process in place for your employees can lead to improved organization and consistency. Let’s take a deeper look at the intentional client experience and see how it benefits your company.

Intentional Client Experience Begins With a Plan

Some of the best client experiences simply begin with a good plan. One that is authentic and meaningful in your communication with your client is important. You can simply magnify the client experience through touchpoints that each add up to an overall exceptional client experience. Many clients these days expect more than the basic customer support. They want to feel significant and satisfied when they deal with your company. The intentional client experience has a clear mission with defined steps leading clients to have a great experience.

Intentional Client Experience Takes Being Client Centric

You want your clients to have a positive experience pre- and post-sale in order to drive repeat business. So not just offering great customer service but nurturing lasting relationships is tantamount to success. By understanding your clients and their needs, you can predict how they are going to react to certain things. This knowledge will help you figure out key touchpoints to keep those clients on track. You can look at client data to understand buying behaviors and to see their areas of interest and engagements. Intimately knowing your clients, you can also track places of opportunities to enhance client service and experience.

Intentional Client Experience Leads to Efficiency

The intentional experience leads to efficiency while prioritizing client experience. It reduces face-to-face interactions without compromising how the client is feeling. Using digital touchpoints, your company can skillfully keep clients happy. You can anticipate client needs and establish protocols. For example, if specific clients want to stay up to date on your company’s activities, then you can make sure they are signed up for notifications. In knowing exactly what your clients want, you save a lot of time.

Intentional Client Experience Ensures Positive Client Feedback

By creating a client tailored service, clients are getting what they want more quickly. Intentionally staying on top of client needs will lower the amount of negative comments and complaints a company may get. If your company receives complaints, taking these and tweaking your intentional pathway can certainly help your firm improve client satisfaction and promote positive feedback.

Maximize Revenue With Intentional Client Experience

The intentional client experience is an efficient, needs oriented and positive scenario for your clients which reduces frustrations among your employees. By eliminating opportunities for failure and reason for complaints, employees are more driven to create that amazing relationship with their clients. Satisfied employees that continue to offer fantastic customer service with an overall exceptional experience helps ensure clients continue to conduct business with your firm thus maximizing revenue. With constant advancements in determining client satisfaction such as the Client Feedback Tool, every company should be able to create the intentional client experience.

Recruiting top talent especially for project-based firms is a crucial and effectively a non-stop process. Since projects come and go, there is always the need for qualified team members to be able to jump in and handle them. So how do firms stay on top of the hiring game and get ahead of the competition? The answer lies in automating HR processes with a talent management system. Let’s check out some ways automation would benefit your firm.

Work More Efficiently

Automation with a talent management system helps both candidates and recruiters work more efficiently. Everyone has limited time, so having a fast means of scheduling interviews, matching job skills and quickly getting desired candidates on board is a necessity. Particularly when a project opens up, and a team needs to be assembled, time is of the essence. An automated talent management system handles the core HR processes for you, so everything runs much more smoothly. Additionally, good candidates that may not be available to work at that moment can be kept in a standby position which is monitored through automation.

Better Candidate Experience

Your firm’s chances of staying ahead of the hiring competition increases exponentially when job candidates are excited to work for your firm. With an improved candidate experience in the hiring process, top talent will feel confident that working for your firm is a good choice. Automated recruiting allows for communications to flow via email and follow up to occur in a timely manner. Hired candidates will also be on-boarded quickly and placed where their tracked skill sets are required. With an automated talent management system, candidates are left with a positive recruiting experience that will be shared with others that perhaps may become future employees.

Hiring More Diversely

Another plus is that recruiting automation ensures that the best talent is hired based on the needed skill sets for your firm. Human recruiting has a lot of bias and sometimes the same type of worker is hired. However, there are so many great candidates that can offer the team a wider outlook on handling projects. Whereas, automated hiring takes the bias out of the equation and only looks at the required certifications and job skills for working on projects. Studies have shown that diversity leads to a more productive workforce.

Automation is Attractive

From the perspective of both recruiters and candidates, an automated talent management system saves time and in the end money. Recruiters can connect with top talent more efficiently and talent has the opportunity to see what is offered quickly. Since projects need to be started as soon as possible and managed well, finding top talent is essential for success. Fortunately, automation is an attractive option for all parties to the hiring process and helps keep firms ahead of the hiring competition.

Business Intelligence (BI) puts together business analytics, data mining, data visualization, technology resources along with the best practices to help companies make more data-driven decisions. Business intelligence can help businesses make better choices by displaying present and historical data in their business context. Analysts can use data visualization to provide performance and competitor benchmarks for a smoother and more efficiently run organization. Analysts can also detect market trends to boost sales or income more quickly. Making sure you are using BI and data visualization properly is important. Let’s look at how you can choose the right data visualizations for your company.

Temporal Visualizations

In the temporal category, data visualizations belong if they satisfy two conditions: they are linear, and they are one-dimensional. Temporal visualizations normally have lines that either stand alone or intersect with each other, with starting and ending time. Some common examples of data visualizations include scatter plots, time series sequences, timelines, line graphs, and polar area diagrams. These visualizations are usually pretty easy to recognize and understand. Picking the right visualization all depends on the kind of story you are trying to tell. When choosing a temporal visualization, your end goal should be comparing one or many value sets. This can help you easily show the low and high values of a data set.

Hierarchical Visualizations

In the hierarchical category, data visualizations are those that organize groups within larger groups. These are best used to display clusters of information, especially if they flow from one point to another. Typical hierarchical visualizations are tree diagrams, ring charts, and sunburst diagrams. Just like any type of data visualization, it is important that you are effectively telling a story with the graphics that you use. For this type, showing levels of importance coming from a single source is the main purpose of these visualizations. The only downside is that these graphs tend to be complex and sometimes difficult to read. The tree diagram is used most frequently because of its easy-to-follow linear path.

Multidimensional Visualizations

While linear data is easier to understand, sometimes you have the need to capture your audience’s attention. Multidimensional displays two or more different variables to create a 3D data visualization. These types of visualizations are scatter plots, pie charts, Venn diagrams, stacked bar graphs, and histograms. These visuals can break down a ton of data into key takeaways, making it easier to clearly identify what you are trying to get across. Multidimensional is used to compare data and parts of a whole and show relationships between two variables. With multidimensional data, you are able to choose different colors and shapes to really customize your graphic.

Data Visualization Makes an Impact

Choosing the right visualization for your data directly impacts how it gets across to the viewers. Your main goal should always be to properly tell a story with the graphics that you use. Data visualization allows you to display specific data in an eye-catching way leading to a successful conveyance of important and relevant information.

Firms in the professional services industry must adapt to compete in today’s world. Through acquisitions and other partnerships, many professional services firms have been entering into new markets. These firms now have the need to offer a wider range of services to a larger client base. Additionally, many firms have increased their global presence which affects the way client needs have been handled in the past. Let’s check out the top trends for professional services firms as they deal with evolving client expectations and staying competitive.

On-demand Workforce

As new demands arise with the increasing service offerings by professional services firms to more clients, an on-demand workforce is necessary. This workforce can include contractors, part time staff and temporary workers in addition to full timers to meet staffing needs. Firm leaders will need to learn how to manage this future workforce and cultivate a culture that will be attractive to top talent with the key skill sets to render firm services.

More Flexible Service Rendering

Competition for the professional services industry has increased with rapid globalization. Clients expect professional services firms to support them and deliver high quality services from anywhere in the world. With location not being the priority, client demands can be met with operational and staffing flexibility. It is very important to stay abreast of who would be competent and available for doing the needed work.

Perception as Advisors

Professional services firms are changing the way they price services. There has been a shift from the traditional per-hour revenue model to a more value-oriented model. With value-based pricing, professional services firms are setting their prices primarily on perceived or estimated value of the service to the customer rather than historical prices. This value-based pricing encourages the relationship of a professional services firm being an advisor rather than just a service provider.

Leveraging Automation

With technology changing at such a fast pace, professional services firms are increasing their offerings with the use of automation. Using automation allows firms to simplify complicated and/or difficult processes saving a lot of time while delivering quality services. Automation also makes it easier to find the source of problems and provides the ability to remedy them quickly. Additionally, automation can help reduce errors and eliminate repetitive tasks.

Staying Competitive in Today’s World

Professional services firms must stay competitive in the global world of today. In order to do so, they must keep a pulse on their evolving client needs. Even more, they must be ready to provide a flexible workforce rendering quality services as fast as possible to wherever needed. The use of automation is a necessity for success. Furthermore, professional services firms must focus on satisfying their client expectations to ensure their services continue to be utilized.