KEY POINTS:
When a KPMG employee leaves, it's generally the start of a beautiful friendship - well, that's if audit partner Chris Joyce has anything to do with it.
Joyce manages the accounting firm's alumni programme for Auckland and Wellington and his efforts to keep in touch with ex-employees have helped to net the firm valuable contracts and lured former employees with useful new skills back to the fold.
Ex-employees can be a valuable source of business opportunities and recruitment prospects for employee and employer, as well as good ambassadors for their old firm, says Joyce.
He recalls one KPMG employee who left the firm after eight years to pursue another role. He and Joyce kept in touch and, when he learned his former colleague was looking for a different job, Joyce used his own network of contacts to put him in contact with a company ready to hire for that very position. The man got the job and also pointed KPMG toward $150,000 worth of business with his former firm.
Another ex-employee took up a job in London where he specialised in helping firms to adopt the new International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Joyce kept in touch and the pair had a beer whenever he was in England. After five years the ex-employee mentioned he was thinking of coming home - music to Joyce's ears.
"It was at the time when New Zealand was introducing the IFRS, and I said, 'Well, we'll bring you home'. He ended up working for our technical team for two years helping our clients set up for IFRS, then set up his own business. He's now contracting back to us."
A corporate alumni programme is a youngish concept in New Zealand but has been part of corporate culture in the US for years. A 1998 FastCompany article, "Hire Today Gone Tomorrow", expounds on the ex-employee network: "Forget lifetime employment. The new goal is lifetime affiliation. Forget such terms as 'ex-employees' and 'former colleagues'. The new term of choice is 'alumni'. The day someone walks out the door doesn't mark the end of your relationship with that person. It marks the start of a new stage in that relationship."
In New Zealand, most larger organisations have some sort of organised alumni programme which involves a magazine or a newsletter, as well as social and educational functions. In the US however, alumni have been taken seriously by big business for years.
The US consulting firm Bain & Company has about 6500 alumni on its books and seems to communicate with them more than most companies do with their current employees. Bain & Company alumni receive frequently updated alumni directories, invitations to cocktail receptions or to participate in panel discussions, and a biannual newsletter covering developments at the firm and the achievements of other alumni.
Perhaps New Zealand corporates don't yet view having an organised alumni programme as being essential, suggests Kristen Cooper of Kaycee Projects, a Canterbury human resources consultant.
"From what I can gather from clients and students ... we are still relatively unsophisticated. Or perhaps it isn't high enough on [our priority list] yet. Certainly, measurement of benefit has to be over the long term and perhaps we have activity of more immediate return on our minds."
It doesn't help that New Zealand lacks the critical mass of its firms in the US, Europe and Australia, where many companies and universities need alumni management specialists to run alumni relations. In New Zealand, KPMG's Joyce has help from a colleague in Wellington and a couple of marketers to put out the biannual alumni magazine and to organise social events.
Technology is helping. Last year KPMG in the US launched a social-networking system to help stay in touch with its alumni. Reportedly, a few months after launching the site, about 7400 alumni had registered. Next year the New Zealand website will be relaunched with the same tools to help its 1000 or so alumni keep in touch.
Auckland start-up incubator the ICEhouse set up an organised alumni programme for graduates of its owner-manager courses just over two years ago.
As well as being potential customers for more courses, graduates are also a valuable source of feedback and ideas for the organisation, says Liz Wotherspoon, director of ICEbridge, which runs short courses for the ICEhouse.
A representative from each course joins the ICEhouse's network advisory board, which is the "eyes and ears and the voice of the customer", says Wotherspoon. The board gives input on strategic issues and lets the ICEhouse know what it's doing right and where it could improve. The board also organises activities and social events for course-goers and previous alumni, which offer valuable networking opportunities.
Alumni are also a useful pool of contacts for market research, she says. This year some course alumni will offer their business plans for inspection in the ICEhouse's upcoming business plan review process pilot.
The idea of having a readymade network of experience on hand to inspire and mentor others prompted the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards to establish an official alumni programme for past winners and finalists.
The awards are in their 10th year this year and award programme director Jon Hooper says an official alumni programme will enable the 180 finalists, category winners and supreme winners to connect with each other.
"Most of these business owners have faced various hurdles, opportunities, had success failures, and moved offshore. Getting together as a group provides an opportunity to share those experiences and also to mentor some of the younger entrepreneurs coming through."
Five previous winners - publisher David Johnson, fashion designer and publisher Annah Stretton, manufacturer Noel Davies, and entrepreneurs Bill Day and Hamish Conway - will sit on a steering committee to organise the group's activities and aims.
