In today’s episode of ‘From the eLearning Trenches,’ we ask one of our learners to identify and discuss challenges their team faces with collaboration.
“When the firm was much smaller, many years ago, there was a lot more collaboration.
There were weekly workflow meetings where the whole team discussed the jobs they were working on, asked for advice and information, and basically all shared what everyone was doing. These meetings started to become too long though and were taking up valuable processing time, so were eventually stopped. Workflow meetings then changed to small team-based meetings, between the team member and their manager.
However, these are often criticised for being too long also and not covering the necessary agenda. To be honest it seems that any collaboration (meetings between staff, either formal or informal, to discuss a job or client or topic), are generally looked at as ‘non-productive’ time that went for too long and could have been better spent.
Feedback from our experts
This is a great example of communication challenges that are very common in accounting firms. The learner observes that collaborative actions, including meetings, as seen as non-productive in an environment that focuses on ‘getting things done.’ This is a core problem with the enduring focus on ‘chargeable time.’ We’re all familiar with unnecessary or unproductive meetings, but perhaps the answer lies in better communication rather than none at all!
This assessment task and response is taken from the Path to Partnership eLearning Course. Click here to find out more
