Anders + Summit Merger Story
Summit’s experience as a distributed firm allows them to recruit candidates in other parts of the country—not just the St. Louis area. On the flipside, the fact that Anders has a brick-and-mortar location means we can recruit people who want to come into an office every day. When it comes to hiring, one area that Summit had nearly given up on is people right out of college—not because they can’t do the job, but because, in our experience, they typically don’t want the job. A lot of people don’t want to come straight out of college and work in an online environment and be in their house all day. We’ve nearly said, “Okay, this is the area we’re not going to recruit anymore,” but with Anders this is an area of great success: They have a downtown location where college graduates enjoy working, and hold events like office happy hours and Young Professional activities that give them an opportunity to have more of a social experience at work. We’re going to be able to hire those accountants that we haven’t hired before, and they’re going to be able to start off in the office and, if they love it, they can stay there their whole career. If, after a few years, their situation changes, they’ve got the flexibility to work from home, or create a hybrid schedule.
“Wait, you guys are going to help us learn how to get more experienced people that come in from outside of the St. Louis area,” and we’re saying, “Hey, look, we’re going to have an office for people to go to right out of college.” It’s a perfect example of how Summit and Anders complement one another—and how much of a payoff we expect from the work of integrating a distributed and hybrid team. Sure, it’s an upfront effort to do something unprecedented like this; once again, we’re writing the playbook. Each team will have to be intentional about how they set them- selves up, but the long term result is another win-win: Summit’s position at the forefront of virtual work will bridge the gap within Anders to help provide more remote options and Anders resources will make it possible for us to amplify how we use technology in service of relationships, whether it’s workplace camaraderie or client service. Another way we hope to grow is by providing more opportunities to our current team, in addition to the flexible work arrangements. We’ll be able to increase employee retention by providing more opportunities for lateral, internal moves. If someone gets tired of taxes and wants to try auditing, business valuation, or forensics, we’ll be able to help them make the change—rather than have them start
looking externally; and we won’t have to look externally as often either. We’ll have more slots and more people to fill those slots and be able to create capacity that way, too.
PEOPLE ARE OUR BUSINESS: the right people who understand our clients’ needs. We take care of them, and they take care of our clients. When we have more options to offer, we’ll get that much stronger. These are just a few examples of how we improve work for everyone. We’re excited that we’re going to keep finding those things.
When our HR people talk, you can see the light bulbs go off. The Anders people say,
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