J.H. Cohn makes a real commitment to learning and development. We invest significant time and resources in enhancing the quality of our primary asset—our people. Our learning and development department is aimed at both fostering employee career advancement and supporting the Firm’s business strategy. We offer a variety of subjects that give employees a foundation in various areas of the company business.
One aspect of learning and development that sets us apart from the rest is that we believe that strengthening enabling skills is a critical performance and career development tool. Our learning and development department offers long-term learning paths and resource materials for interpersonal skills in addition to technical knowledge. Technical expertise remains at the core of our training initiatives, but supplementing these courses with enabling skills training allows our employees to become well-rounded and more valuable to the Firm and to our clients.
Our state-of-the-art Learning and Development department provides a curriculum of 67 programs, where employees are trained to:
- Contribute to the firm’s strategy
- Excel in their job performance
- Achieve their career goals
For our experienced professionals, we run a Partner Candidate Development Academy—an intense training program for senior managers who have the potential of making partner.
To deliver our program, we developed a 24/7 online learning and development management system—a one-stop, central place for the evaluation of career goals, self-assessment, program registration, and CPE compliance. In addition, J.H. Cohn has embraced e-learning initiatives as a way to provide our professionals with a wider range of real-time learning tools. For example, professionals use WebEx to record and distribute internal sessions and have increased dependency on their use of webcasts on relevant topics to enhance Learning and Development curriculum.
Objectives The objectives of our curriculum are to:
- Ensure that employees are prepared for new roles
- Enhance their technical expertise
- Identify and develop leadership talent
- Develop enabling (soft) skills
- Ensure compliance with Continuous Professional Education (CPE) requirements
Knowledge and Skill Areas Below are the overall knowledge and skill areas included in the curriculum:
- Technical excellence: pronouncements, professional standards and practices, J.H. Cohn-specific procedures
- Leadership: an integrated program of job assignments, coaching/mentoring, and skill training from entry level through senior firm leader. Intended to help identify leadership talent early in career and grow capability in leaders at all levels.
- Role readiness: introductory programs for each professional level, “milestone” programs for new employees and new managers
- Enabling skills: leadership and management, communication, business development
- Niche (industry) specific: industry foundation knowledge, trends and issues, unique audit/tax/consulting issues
- Technology skills: desktop and J.H. Cohn applications
- High-potential programs: Partner Candidate Development Academy
In addition to the above programs, the curriculum includes the following learning tools:
- On-the-job development: the firm proactively involves employees in “next-level” responsibilities on engagements, supported by real-time coaching and feedback from engagement partners and managers
- Action learning: selected employees work in teams to develop recommendations to firm management on strategic issues.
- Firm committees and task forces: high-performing employees participate in problem solving and idea generation on firm initiatives.
- Knowledge sources: employees have access to on-line information on professional practices and procedures, marketplace trends/issues, and J.H. Cohn services.
Development and Delivery
The curriculum is developed and maintained through the following processes:
- Continuous need assessment based on external benchmarking, measurement of program results, and input from J.H. Cohn leadership and employees at all levels.
- Sourcing and selection of best-in-industry external resources
- Engagement of high-performing J.H. Cohn employees to develop and deliver selected internal programs.