CPM Student Projects

The Audit & Collections Division (A&C) of the Idaho State Tax Commission has only been able to retain 53% of new auditors for more than 3 years. The majority of these new employees are from Generations X and Y. In addition, over the next 5 years 95 experienced employees of A&C will be eligible for retirement, and most of these additional vacancies will be filed with Generation X & Y employees. To further compound our retention problem the supply of new accounting graduates entering the work force is decreasing, while the demand for qualified accountants is skyrocketing.

In order to improve our retention rate for new auditors I conducted surveys of existing employees and those who had quit the Tax Commission. The goal of these surveys was to determine what would make our employees leave and what role generational differences made in these decisions. After gathering and analyzing all the data I proposed the following actions to improve our ability to retain employees from Generations X & Y:

Shrink the Wage Gap between industry and state government starting pay from $15,000 to $5,000.
Recognize and reward performance.
Improve communication - top to bottom
Help employees grow and develop through strengths identification and cross training.
Create an annual training program for ALL members of management, so they have the skills and knowledge to affectively perform items 2 - 4.