People and culture

Grant Thornton has established a framework to support the development of a common People and Culture strategy across all member firms. This framework is based on our common global vision and values. To establish closer cross-border relationships within the Human Resources (HR) community, the executive director - human resources strategy has an advisory committee of the HR leaders from 10 member firms. Through the collaborative efforts of these leaders, we have focused on creating and encouraging consistent HR standards that will enable member firms to attract, develop and retain high quality people.

People and culture initiatives include:

• the Grant Thornton Leadership Institute, comprised of milestone programmes to support leadership development for experienced managers and partners; 
• a global talent mobility programme and; 
• a global employer brand initiative designed to provide existing and future personnel with an understanding of the global brand, culture and business strategy.

In addition to an International Partner Development Programme, now in its sixth year, in 2008, the Leadership Institute launched a pilot Advanced Manager Programme for experienced managers. Both programmes bring together high-calibre individuals from member firms across the global organisation with the aim of creating the next generation of international leaders.

Continuing education
While the majority of technical training takes place within member firms, Grant Thornton makes a significant investment 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 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 firms' 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 IFRS team for review to determine if training or additional guidance is necessary.