Practice Profile: Innovation for all at Withum

Princeton, New Jersey-based Withum celebrates its employees’ ideas every month — both those that become operational, and the many that don’t.

Either way, staff members who submit their concepts through the Top 25 Firm’s Innovate Withum portal are recognized in a monthly celebration, and may even earn “Withum bucks” in increments of $50 depending on how far the idea progresses into implementation. These incentives have garnered Withum over 650 ideas in the 3 1/2 years since the initiative began, and many popular improvements to the firm’s systems and practices.

But it’s not just the promise of awards and money that entice Withum’s people to input their ideas into the firm’s database (which is open for submissions and accessible for all employees to track). It’s also a desire for improvement, according to chief innovation officer Molly Goins-Cox, who explained that before accessing the portal, employees receive training on the meaning of innovation and the process for submitting ideas and how the platform works.

The initial flood of submissions was high, most likely from pent-up demand, Goins-Cox said. “A lot of people got training and started submitting ideas. It was pretty cool, a lot of great ideas. One of the challenges is that we got a ton — in services, practice, operations. We average 30 to 40 a month. Some are quick wins — some submit and we just do it, we don’t have to have innovation involved. Some are more moderate, a little bit of technology and a business case on it. We can’t do them all; it’s prioritization.”

The firm also fields many redundant ideas, Goins-Cox explained, but projects Withum has completed include tax workpaper automations, a tax integration portal, and a compliance tracking tool. For the latter solution, “The platform was about to break; it wasn’t functional,” she shared. “We revamped the whole thing and used modern technology that made it significantly better. Clients in particular, they noticed — the response time was much more rapid … . We had many compliments on how we responded to client questions.”

Many of the successful ideas, in fact, have aligned with one of Withum’s overall strategic pillars, Goins-Cox explained: “Withum is very focused on continuing to understand client needs and where we can provide better solutions.”

Owning the ideas

To guide employees in meeting this goal, the firm encouraged all employees, from staff level 1 to seniors, to make their voices heard.

“When the individual submits an idea in the platform, there are the basic questions of what is the idea, what is it going to solve, what are the benefits,” explained Goins-Cox.

And while Withum’s training helped refine what team members input, the most crucial moments come in the next stages of the process, including what Goins-Cox identifies as the all-important ownership factor: “People submit an idea — some people are good at coming up with ideas, team members. But we make sure they have owners, someone who will own it so that it gets executed and used correctly.”

She advised other firms looking to enhance their innovation to make that step a priority.

“One of the things early on ­— so many ideas came in it was hard to process them fast enough,” she recalled. “We got ownership on it — the right project, the right time, to staff out appropriately. Change management is a big issue [so we added] ownership in the second year. We introduced innovation catalysts. In each of the service areas and project areas, we identify innovation catalysts that help us review ideas and determine if it’s an area we want to invest in or not.”

Ownership from the top is also critical, Goins-Cox continued: “It’s very much a part of the culture and leadership-supported.” It is also financially supported, including the firm budgeting $20,000 per year for the Withum bucks it awards for executed ideas.

The innovation catalysts are very involved in the life cycle of these ideas.

“They talk to the innovation owners and partners in those areas to determine funding and secure talent to do the work,” Goins-Cox explained. “Any idea is routed to an innovation owner and catalyst for the first line of review: Does it align with the area and strategy, and are we already doing it? The senior manager level is a good fit; they need to know and understand that business, service and department. If it’s in tax and technical, they need to understand that area well. Each partner is in their own area and identifies senior-level people that understand the area.”

Expanding the reach

Besides operational improvements, Withum’s innovation initiative has also reaped benefits in the professional development realm.

“One of the biggest things I’ve observed on the higher end, is to get to the partner level you have to be able to innovate, and sponsor projects to make sure they are delivered,” Goins-Cox shared. “In my short period of time, a lot of those innovation catalysts have been promoted to partner. It brings out leadership skills.”

Successful projects have also been transferable across departments, Goins-Cox noted. “We see an idea in one area, and look at other ways they can do the same thing … . We’ve started with one [idea] and we’re able to scale across other [departments].”

The broad implementation and ownership of innovation has been paramount for Goins-Cox since she was hired to lead that function for the firm four years ago.

“For it to be successful, there has to be a strategic focus and leadership has to be completely bought in for it as a priority, having a dedicated department, which includes team members,” she advised. “One of the things I asked before I was hired is, ‘What’s the budget? How much are you investing for me, year over year?’ And the third piece is to design it so everyone can innovate. That’s very important.”

In addition to the Innovate Withum portal, another forum for democratizing this kind of brainstorming are the ideation sessions Withum hosts about twice a year.

“We do sessions where we go in with no ideas of the table,” she explained. “We introduce them to things Withum has done previously, but people in that session brainstorm. And we end up with a couple hundred ideas in those 90 minutes.”

The products of those meetings have included some generative artificial intelligence and data extraction projects that answer the questions, “How do we work smarter and make it easier for everyone?”

Speaking of AI, that’s an area Withum has been focused on and will remain so in the near future, according to Goins-Cox.

“You have to be engaged in the new technology coming out,” she said. “I took a pretty forward position when generative AI came out, to embrace it and establish a strategy, from a level 1 day-to-day use to all team members. We are experts in tax, audit and advisory … . We use generative AI to be better advisors. My philosophy is we’ve got to embrace it. You are not going to be replaced by AI, but replaced by someone who knows AI better than you.”

In the meantime, Goins-Cox ensures that innovation permeates the firm and is always top of mind.

“Innovation catalysts talk in their own staff meetings, and at our State of the Firm meetings I talk about innovation, and in different meetings throughout the year. All the messaging — the monthly celebration day, we celebrate and [employees] get to see it. In the emails we show titles, the person’s picture and what the idea is or was. And throughout that are tidbits on innovation, and we share success stories.”