getting the benefit of the best practices captured in the software solution, states Averbook.12 He also points out that due to their ability to leverage their cost across multiple clients, operations and maintenance expenses passed on to the client through the pricing models are lower than they would be if directly managed and paid by the client.

In summary, if the firm has reached a level of complexity that benefits from automation, the firm should strongly consider a purchased package application instead of a custom-built, internally created solution. When evaluating the cost, the firm should also consider the immediate counterbalancing benefits of effective automation, which include, but are not limited to, the following:

Days-sales-outstanding (DSO) reduction Administrative and overhead cost reduction Speed-to-respond to new business improvement

Naturally, the more appropriate the software solution is to the firms needs, the bigger and better the investment will pay off.

Buying the Right Software Solution

Such a broad array of choices with rich features, can make the task of selecting the right solution difficult. The vendor selection process is beyond the scope of this chapter. Chapter 10 of The Executives Guide to Information Technology has a thorough, detailed treatment of the process and should be considered mandatory reading for any firm considering the purchase of packaged software.13

Develop Engaging Management Skills

Up to this point, the focus of our discussion has been on:

Being clear on the type of talents, skills, capabilities, and passions the firm needs to succeed

Determining what needed talents, skills, capabilities, and passions are in the resource pool

Determining the right level of utilization to expect from each individual resource

Managing the billable pool of resources for optimal levels of revenue and profitability

Determining when and how to automate some or all of these processes so that you can focus less on collecting, categorizing, and collating and more time making decisions, leading your business, and driving results.

All of these add up to the techniques and skills used to maximize billable resources. Another important dimension, however, is the topic of engagement. Engagement is the maximization of personal dedication and energy that each of your people puts into the hours worked as he or she applies talents, skills, and capabilities, toward meeting the needs of clients and the development of the firm and their professional careers.

In addition to bench management, the firm can achieve significant benefits by focusing on the practices that lead to engaging professional staff in their work as fully as possible. Without engagement, your resources may be physically present, and utilized in the proper quantities of time, but their output and the value delivered to clients will not reflect the fullest capacity of their talents, skills and capabilities.

According to a Gallup study, every year in America, companies lose $350 billion due to having disengaged employees. The primary reason is the lack of management and leadership capability among the ranks of their direct managers.14

New managers recently promoted to their positions from the ranks of high-performing contributors are especially likely to contribute to disengagement. These newly minted managers often lack the skills needed to engage team members. The skills, capabilities, and motivations that make for a top contributor are usually not the same ones that result in a top manager. These high-performing contributors can become excellent managers, but often they need to be given guidance and development in order to succeed. The firms professional development program should train and monitor new managers carefully to help them make the transition from performer to manager without risking discouragement to these managers or disengagement for their teams.

How Does Professional Staff Disengagement Impact the Firm?

From a business perspective, the results of poor manager practices often manifest in the following ways:

Increased turnover and the associated replacement costs Poor professional staff performance

Missed deadlines

Low quality work product Decreased morale and motivation Increased employee complaints

Without decisive action by the firm, the problems associated with this can quickly mount.

Compounding the issue, recent studies indicate the bad habits developed by new managers, if left unchecked, are unlikely to improve on their own. For example, a study performed by Towers Perrin,15 one of the worlds leading management and human resources consulting firms, found that managers of all tenures, across a number of companies surveyed, received low marks from employees on the behaviors that have the most significant impact on employee engagement, including:

Recognizing and rewarding good performance

Empowering employees

Encouraging innovation and new thinking

Exercising good decision making Team building

Providing goals and directions Communicating effectively

Global thinking and understanding the big picture Coaching and developing the skills of employees

Displaying integrity

To maximize staff engagement, the firm must develop engaging managers and promote the fair and equitable treatment of all employees. It has been my experience from observation and from looking at the data that an employees perception of being unfairly treated by the organization is a major push towards cynicism or other distancing from work, states Leiter.16 Being considered fair is often one of the most important and often overlooked elements of an engaging work environment. Employees will lose faith in managements good intentions and passion for a company when they perceive that company decision making is arbitrary and capricious.

Improving Manager and Staff Engagement

The firm can take early preventive action to help orient new managers (as well as not so new managers whove missed the basics) and avoid the issues discussed earlier. A condition of promotion within the firm should be the completion of manager training to help managers gain the skills they need to handle their new responsibilities. In their 2004 Workforce and Workplace Forecasts December 31, 2003, Roger Herman and Joyce Gioia, strategic business futurists and certified management consultants, state that as employers discover the impact of serious inadequacies in management and leadership, up and coming managers will be expected to learn and practice leadership skills before assuming new positions. 17 Stressing the importance of continuing to give new managers extra attention during their first few months in their