Special Convention Edition
6.18.2021
5 Days of Information to set us up for a Successful Tax Season 22
This week was jammed packed full of information that is going to set us up for success in the District and our Company. We had a great year with the company growing assisted clients, specifically New Clients grew 23%, Central Florida saw a New Client Growth of 41%, WOW!
Some of the topics we covered in the convention included looking back at TS21, Wins and Opportunities, Small Business, System Optimizing, SOPs, and much more.
Monday
Culture of a Great Place to Work
Impact of Leadership
Culture and environment are a driver of business results. A few stats that I took from Monday's session was when people are happy at work there is 3x better shareholder return and 7x higher growth. The company with the #1 culture from a Fortune 500 study was Facebook. Associates at Facebook has a high support culture to solve problems.
Our Associate Engagement Survey gives us an opportunity to hear from you. Three things that came from that survey is nationally our associates believe in our plans for Block Horizons 2025, support for our SOPs is high, and our associates have pride in working for Block. Three opportunity areas are communication of why some decisions are made (think schedule changes), micromanagement of tasks, and lack of support to do your job successfully.
In the coming weeks I will hold virtual townhall meetings on my plan to be a better leader for you. My goal is to be a high support leader and helps solve problems or get you the support to help you serve clients.
#BetterTogether
Community Support
On Monday evening, we had a tutorial on how to make a NO SEW fleece blanket to donate to a local charity. I bought this kit at Walmart and it was fun to make. I will donate this blanket to the Harbor House of Central Florida. If you want to make a blanket too, let me know, we can gather blankets and make a bigger impact together on our community. For each blanket we made this week as part of the company funds were donated to the Associate Relief Fund. See the link below to learn more about the Associate Relief Fund.
Since we are all part of this great organization, I wanted to give you an opportunity to be a part of our goal to achieve 1 million volunteer hours by 2025. I know many of you volunteer at churches and other organizations, so why not log your time. It doesn’t have to be for H&R Block, it must be for a Non-Profit organization.
I’m asking that when you donate your time this year, please log into our H&R Block give back website and log your hours @ https://hrblock.yourcause.com/
If you have an organization you are passionate about, let me know and together maybe we can find a way to help them as a team.
Tuesday
Better Tools to Serve Our Clients
Appointment Manager, Work Center, Virtual Tools, Oh My!
On Tuesday, we learned about some of the optimization of the tools that help us be successful in serving clients. The information on changes will be coming soon.
Virtual tools are an opportunity for our team here in Central Florida. National average for clients with a virtual tool is 7.9%, Central Florida finished at 7.3% tool usage. Our goal for TS21 was 20%, our goal for TS22 is 30%, and we have some work to do. Currently in the preseason 8% of clients in June have utilized a virtual tool.
I want to give a HUGE round of applause to our Tax Pros that met and exceeded our 20% goal for TS21, please join me an celebrating their success:
Lorraine Pinsky 60.5%
Mike Torres 60.1%
Lisa McKeown 41.2%
Tomi Ings 36.2%
Becky Kaplan 29.3%
Lesley Jones 28.1%
Debbie Martz 26.3%
Tom Carveth 26.2%
Kesi Warren 26.1%
Robert Holtslander 21.1%
Lanning Turner 20.5%
Tax Professional Development
This was year 2 for Tax Professional Development opt in, I had about 20 people opt in but only 12 or so people scheduled time to chat. If you want to have a development conversation, let me know and we will set up some time to talk. I am approaching the 6-month mark of being your DGM, and in those 180 days I do not feel like I have been everything I can to get to know each one of you. We will all have one on one time during our rehire interviews, those will start in the next 10 days. One piece of feedback I have heard loud and clear is email overload. Email is an easy way to communicate but I want to communicate with you in the best way it works for you. I need to know how you prefer communication. Phone, text, WhatsApp, townhalls, in person, video messages, voice messages, or any other ideas you may have for me for better communication.
Wednesday
Small Business
On Wednesday we started the day with all things Small Business. Client Experience, Products, and what is in store for TS22. We start earlier for our Small Business Certification and we are adding an Advance Small Business Certification. One of the metrics that I found eye opening was the service score was 3.5 points better when a small business client was served by a certified Tax Pro. Our product take rates for Small Business product was low. We have a longer runway this year with these products to get a better understanding of how these can benefit our small business clients.
Client Experience Survey
For January to May 17th we finished the season with a 90.6 intent to return and we closed our Prior Client versus New Client gap by 5 points. Last year the gap was about 10 points and this year the gap is about 5. Great Job showing value to our New Clients this year! As we start our first Quarter for TS22, we want to keep the client service experience as a top priority, happy clients help us grow.
Kim Becking- Guest speaker
Kim was all the energy you would ever want on a Wednesday afternoon! She shared with us her journey with cancer and how she came out stronger. When you ride a roller coaster- do you hold on tight to the bar? or do you let go and throw your hands in the air? Holding on tight does not change the outcome. She discussed how sometimes we hold on so tight to things out of our control that we do not take the time to enjoy life trying to keep on to the control. The part of her presentation that punched me in the gut was her green bananas. It is her symbol of hope, when she was going through cancer treatment, she would buy green bananas and have the hope she would be alive in the coming days to enjoy the ripe bananas when they were ready. It made me reflect on what are my green bananas, what are the little things in my life I look forwarded to enjoying. What is your green banana?
Thursday
Sharpening Skills for the Tax Season
Thursday started off with reviewing tools to help me plan for the Tax Season and be a better leader. One of the analogies that sparked a light bulb for me was "This is not a math problem". We all know if we have a goal of 100 returns this week, we need to divide 100 by 7 to reach the goal. How we get to the goal is more important than sharing the goal. I want to be able to provide the how and the why in the upcoming season. That is far more impactful than the goal.
We reviewed what not to do and best practices from DGMs across the country on 3 topics:
- Communication
- Home Based Planning
- Office Visits
After our discussion we broke out into workshops to identify our own opportunities and started to develop a plan on how we can improve.
Time with Jeff Jones
We had the opportunity to hear from Jeff on his thoughts for TS21 and our goals as we continue working the plan for Block Horizons 2025. We discussed how we can demand high standards for ourselves and each other when it comes to serving more clients in future years. He shared his 3 focus areas for the upcoming year:
- Increase the digitization of our business- He shared that meant across all channels and departments. My thoughts on this is the world has changed in the last 18 months. People order food differently, during the season I almost always used Door Dash to deliver food to the offices. People have groceries delivered, I shop online at Walmart/Target and a few hours later my items are on my door mat. People watch their favorite shows via streaming services, use an app to get a ride to the airport, or pay to park on the street in downtown Orlando online. We need to change at a similar pace or risk being left behind.
- Effectively acquire new customers and keep them coming back- We grew new clients in Central Florida this year and some this was due to some free services like AARP being less available. We also grew due to the need for more expertise. People changed the way they made money and that changed how they needed to file. YOU provided great service to these clients; I am confident we will see good retention in TS22. This will not happen without hard work from the whole team.
- The future of financial products at Block- I will be sharing more about the strides we are making to provide additional financial solutions above and beyond our Emerald suite of products.
One of the recent changes in our organization is we are now under one umbrella. One team of retail- Company and Franchise, Block Advisors, and DIY Digital. Jeff spoke about finding the value of winning as a team. We are unique in the industry; clients can start online and send for Tax Pro Review. Clients can send a Digital drop off to an office, they can start in the office and finish with Approve Online. We need to see that winning at the office level is only the first step to success. We want all 22 offices to win, and all the districts in our region, and all the regions in our market and so on. We are not in competition with each other or the DIY product. There is room for us all to win and TS21 showed us that is possible.
Women's Network Event
Thursday wrapped up with a women's network event discussing imposter syndrome. I included the 6.5-minute video below. I plan to schedule a discussion forum on this topic for any who are interested in participating. If this is your first-time hearing about imposter syndrome, it is very common in the workplace for many. This can sometimes include negative self-talk about your abilities and telling yourself that people may discover you are an imposter. If you are interested in joining the conversation, please send me a text or email with your interest.
Friday
East Market and Southeast Coast Region
Friday started off with a meeting as an East Market and Central Florida was recognized as one of 15 districts that meet the Quadfecta, if you are asking, what does that mean?
That means YOU- Tax Pros, CSPs, Team Leaders- earned an amazing recognition by hitting our client goals, revenue goals, financial goals, and client service goals. Thank you for the hard work you put in every day of a very difficult Tax Season.
We had three break outs that focus on how we will lead differently in TS22. I did some reflection on my personal opportunities and how I can be a better leader for YOU. I am dedicated to making the changes to provide the best support I can. I will make mistakes and I am committed to listen then grow.
New Ways to Engage!
Let's brainstorm on new ways to engage. I want to know from you what are some ways we can connect. I do not want to think outside the box, I want to come up with ideas like there is no box. Some ideas I have come up with:
Trivia nights- this can be done virtually
Virtual Coffee Hour
Virtual Happy Hours
Learn something new sessions- How to make a NO SEW blanket might be a good one?
Book Club- see the book I am reading next based on a recommendation. If you want to read it with me?
Do you have any ideas to share with me on how we can stay connected all year?
What's Hot on the Plate
CE Hours
We want to dedicate time to start up Continuing Education, the deadline for CE is November 30th. But that is like waiting until April 15th to start a complex Tax Return. The longer we wait, the harder it is to get done on time. We will have incentive raffles for associates who finish by August 1st, September 1st, and October 1st. If you are done by August 1st you will be in included in all 3 raffles. More to come on prizes.
Applications for Tax Professionals are OPEN NOW!
HOT TIP: DO NOT USE HRB email on your application. Use and email address you have access to, this way you can sign the hiring documents when they arrive.
All Tax Pros apply to one requisition that is listed at Casselberry, when applications are processed we will assign you to your office.
Team Leader and CSP applications will open on a later date.
Referral for ITC
It is that time of year for referrals. Do you know someone who might be thinking of working for HRB? Did you know it takes 5 to 12 times of seeing a marketing message before someone says yes? If you are posting on social media one time, only a fraction of your network sees the message. You know better than anyone what it takes to work in a tax office, and you know better than anyone how understaffed our offices were this last season. I need your help finding great talent.
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