Wickland Westcott

Grant Thornton Partnership

Grant Thornton UK LLP is one of the country's leading financial and business advisers with more than 15,000 corporate and institutional clients. In 2006, it was once again ranked 5th by the Accountancy Age annual 'Top 50 Firms' survey. Key to retaining its strong position is the calibre of the individuals that lead the business and who maintain its values and culture, namely its Partners.

Several years ago the firm realised it faced several people-related business challenges that were key to preserving the quality of the firm. Driving this focus on people-related issues was the recognition that the firm could differentiate itself in the market through the quality of its people. In particular, the quality of its Partners was critical in influencing the standards of client work the firm delivers. Of equal importance was their ability to act as role models to other employees.

It was therefore apparent that the decisions the firm made about who to appoint to Partner were of critical importance. The firm needed a process by which to accurately evaluate candidates for Partnership that would not be an overly resource hungry.

Designing/developing the programme

Grant Thornton decided to seek expert assistance from HR consultants Wickland Westcott, as the firm wanted to ensure:

• Applicants for Partnership were given adequate opportunities to demonstrate their technical skills as well as the right behaviours (e.g. interpersonal skills, strategic thinking etc).
• The selection process (i.e. all the exercises and tests used) worked equally well and would be fair and objective for all candidates, irrespective of their specialisms.
• The key Partner attributes needed to maintain the success of the firm were evaluated and reported against when assessing each applicant.
• The quality and consistency of the assessment process needed to be maintained as, over time, different existing Partners would be involved in the process of selecting new partners.

The first task tackled by the firm was a review and development of Grant Thornton's 'attribute' set, and gaining an understanding of the key skill areas for its Partners. It was essential that they were reflective of the firm at that time as well as how it saw itself developing in the future. A link was made between the attributes and the firm's values and its way of operating, and also with the firm's business objectives.

Wickland Westcott's occupational psychologists then turned their attention to designing an assessment process that would consistently gather accurate information about each of the firm's candidates going forward for Partnership. Individual psychometric tests and exercises were chosen for their ability to reliably collect information against the firm's newly re-worked competency criteria. The end result was a single day, one-to-one assessment process.

Meanwhile, the firm developed its own pre-assessment selection process, which meant that all candidates (internal and external) would need to be sponsored by an existing Partner. This helped the firm keep costs to a minimum by ensuring that only sufficiently experienced and knowledgeable candidates were assessed more fully.

Implementation and operating the programme

An important decision for the firm was to decide who should conduct the formal assessment of candidates. It was essential to maintain a rigorously high standard of assessment, and to also maintain the actual and perceived fairness and objectivity of the process. They chose to have Wickland Westcott's Occupational Psychologists conduct the assessments for the firm due to the experience of the consultants in assessing senior executives from across a range of industry sectors, as well as Professional Service firms.

This provided the added comfort of knowing that candidates could be benchmarked against other individuals of a similar level. By using a team of only three psychologists, the consistent application of the process was achieved.

Celebrating success/planning the future

The benefits for the firm in developing and applying this process have been numerous. The firm's selection panel receives a 'hard edged' report on all candidates that are assessed, leaving it ideally positioned to explore key areas with the applicant. Applicants themselves have had to demonstrate they possess the right technical knowledge. By independent and objective assessment, they have also needed to demonstrate they can consistently display the behaviours that Grant Thornton knows are needed to drive the firm forward. Importantly, the assessment process also has integrity in the eyes of all stakeholders, i.e. from the sponsoring Partner, to the candidate themselves, through to the members of the firm's internal selection panel. This real and perceived fairness also serves to enhance the reputation of the firm with its existing employees as well as with the profession as a whole. The firm's view of the process is summarised by the Chairman of the Partnership Selection and Interview Panel:

"Wickland Westcott has worked with us over the last 5 years providing clear, objective and well-balanced assessments of all our internal and external Partner candidates. They are extremely professional in approach, and their expert insights add considerably to our understanding of each candidate, providing us with assurance that our decisions are sound".

John Bowler, Chairman, Partnership Selection & Promotion Interview Panel Grant Thornton UK LLP