Professional services sector is moving towards merit-based remuneration

This is echoed in the accountancy and other professional services sectors. Senior and middle managers' commercial performance is now being used to evaluate their performance and eligibility for a salary increase, bonus or promotion.

Many welcome this, but the change is bringing with it many challenges for firms - particularly when new measures and benchmarks for remuneration and bonuses include activities such as business development (BD) success.  A lot of firms are unsure what BD activities individuals should be expected to achieve in order to progress and prosper in their firms. They also have to find new ways to measure those activities and the resulting performance - ones that give the individual a fair chance of achieving them and give the firm some tangible and quantifiable measure to assess progress.

And with training budgets being cut or frozen many firms are struggling to provide the support needed to help individuals achieve their new targets. In most cases legal, accountancy and other professionals still have to complete CPD targets in order to continue practising. We're being increasingly called in by firms to help establish and articulate competencies that are realistic and achievable for different fee-earning roles and levels.  

Much of our work of late has involved ‘mapping' BD competencies onto specific job roles.  In doing so, we've been able to help law firms:

• Let everyone know what the firm's specific BD expectations of them are
• Create specific and measurable objectives on which individuals will be judged, and
• Put in place the support needed to help fee-earners to achieve those objectives

The first two points here have historically presented quite a challenge for firms. Many found it difficult to set targets relating to business development that are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Action focused, Realistic and Timed) for each role. In past performance reviews, some canny professionals were able to ‘fudge' their BD progress in their annual appraisal.  They were able to give little evidence to support their claims of success. To be fair, some were asked to deliver against ‘soft' and difficult to measure objectives in the first place.

By defining clear expectations, both the firm and the individual are becoming a lot clearer on what success looks like. At the same time firms are also able to focus on what precious resources and support they have to help people achieve their goals. Wastage in areas not supporting the targets is being cut to focus on those that do.

Building on this competencies mapping and objective setting, a number of firms have also asked us to develop and create on-line training resources. This gives fee-earners training modules, support, templates and other resources 24/7. This means that whenever an individual faces a particular challenging area of BD (or if are trying out an activity for the first time), they can get help and resources on a ‘just in time' basis. It also means there is specific support ‘on tap' for each competency and skillset a fee earner is targeted with as part of their performance review and personal development programme.  Firms can track which modules an individual has undertaken, as part the way they evaluate progress.

There is no doubt that the trend of linking BD competencies to performance measurement and career development is likely to gather pace. Firms that both leverage resources and equip their people with the necessary client focus and commercialism are likely to thrive in the rapidly changing economic landscape ahead.

John Timperley, managing director of the Results Consultancy, is a business development specialist and a former business development director with PricewaterhouseCoopers