Quality people

The recruitment and retention of staff is managed by member firms. Grant Thornton International appointed its first executive director – human resources strategy during 2007 and has subsequently established a framework to support member firms in their HR initiatives. This framework includes the development of a management learning programme (for managers in all member firms), a global talent mobility programme and a global employer branding initiative to help all member firm personnel understand the global brand, culture and business strategy.

To establish closer cross-border working within the HR community, the HR leaders of 10 member firms met for the first time in June 2007 to form the HR advisory committee. Through subsequent collaboration on the above initiatives, they have focused on creating and encouraging consistent HR standards that will enable member firms to hire and then develop high quality people.

Continuing education
While the majority of technical training takes place within member firms, a major financial investment by Grant Thornton International continued during 2007 to train auditors in all member firms in the global audit methodology. The audit methodology, known as Horizon, is supported by state-of-the-art technology. Significant effort and resource has been committed to make the training programme technically rigorous to support  implementation throughout member firms so that the audit needs of both public interest and privately held companies can be met appropriately, regardless of their size or complexity.

Grant Thornton International continued to invest in its international partner development programme, now in its fifth year, which brings together high-calibre individuals from member firms across the global organisation with the aim of creating the next generation of international leaders.

An international tax training programme was designed and course delivery commenced during 2007. Designed by Grant Thornton International to provide tax practitioners from member firms with insight into the principles and practices of crossborder tax assignments, the programme aims to run 20 courses each year, training around 400 tax practitioners by the end of 2008.

Grant Thornton International has a full-time International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) team that is responsible for promoting high quality, consistent application of IFRS throughout the global organisation. The IFRS team is advised and supported by member firm IFRS experts including an IFRS interpretations group. The IFRS team promotes consistency through an international training programme, operating an IFRS helpdesk service and by publishing extensive technical and interpretive guidance, newsletters and other tools and resources. These materials, along with IFRS developments, are communicated via a network of designated IFRS champions in member firms.

For firms with significant IFRS work, the Grant Thornton Audit Review inspection team will include team members who are experienced in IFRS accounting. Any issues concerning IFRS are brought to the attention of the Grant Thornton International IFRS team for review to determine if training or additional guidance is necessary.