Top 10: Deloitte & Touche (#6)

Commitment to employee development at Deloitte & Touche starts at the top. The Boston-based professional services firm had a change of leadership recently, and while it was committed to training before—Deloitte & Touche also ranked # 6 last year in the Top 100—now the company requires managers to put their money where their development is.

Deloitte & Touche is one of only 10 firms in the Top 100 that tie a specific percentage of managers' pay or bonuses to how well they develop their direct reports. Last fiscal year, the firm began the Annual Incentive Plan bonus structure, under which 33 percent of a manager's bonus is tied to how well he or she develops his or her team. The bonus is determined based on goals on a balanced scorecard, including practice development, people development, and client service. Not only that—and perhaps even more important—25 percent of the criteria for partner or director nomination involve building a culture that enables people to excel through development and other factors.

"Part of our where-the-best-choose-to-be strategy is about holding the practice leaders accountable for the development of their people and not abdicating it to HR professionals," says Joseph Gibbons, national director of U.S. education and development for Deloitte & Touche. "We don't produce anything but 'thoughtware,' so the way we increase our people's knowledge base is directly tied to the way we increase our profit base and our client satisfaction."

One of the ways managers make that development happen is through detailed simulations. Simulation has become a preferred method for learning in some parts of the firm. For example, one simulation allows new systems analysts to experience the challenges and dynamics of working on a project. The analysts go through exercises and gather information from the client. "The best way to learn is by doing, but people are paying for our expertise," says Gibbons. "So we want our practitioners to learn in a safe environment how to conduct themselves and how to apply the skills they learn in the most realistic way."

Another simulation teaches the principles of risk management to Deloitte's project managers. Like the analyst simulation, participants are immersed in a client situation where they analyze documents and work in virtual teams. When the simulation is over, participants must pass a final assessment that tests their knowledge of the decision-making steps of risk management. Gibbons's group collects data on learners' learning transfer, measuring client satisfaction and profits, and tracking supervisors' assessments of the participants.

Across the firm, though, Deloitte's strategy for ensuring competency and higher client-satisfaction levels involves certifications. Because Six Sigma quality and continuous improvement certification is becoming more important to its clients, Deloitte believes that it is eventually going to be as important as ISO 9000 or 9001 standards are now. To get out ahead of that trend, the firm offers a certification Web site with a blended curriculum that allows practitioners to develop their knowledge about Six Sigma. They also participate in a certification process administered by a board of Black Belt practitioners in the firm. The program is successful, Gibbons says, because manufacturing clients often require practitioners to have the certification. "The success rate is the win rate tied to our people having that Six Sigma knowledge," he says.

Deloitte is doing what it can to extend its competency and professionalism into the community. The firm is a member of Businesses for Social Responsibility, an organization that helps its member companies succeed in ways that respect ethical values, people, communities and the environment. Gibbons says Deloitte's management development programs attempt to build those principles of social responsibility into managers' thinking. "In our new manager seminar, we have a panel that talks about what it's like to be a manager at Deloitte and the important differentiators as you move up in your career," he says. "That's where we've put a spotlight on community development. The firm wants to have a visible presence in the community and help managers understand that it's a value of the firm." —H.D.