Rea's Annual Report Turning Point: 2015 Annual Report | Page 23

TRAINING and other projects, they will walk away with a deeper, more diverse experience.  Rea’s internal training and development program, The Rea Academy, has been around for many years. But we have stripped it down to the studs and are ready to rebuild. Annie Yoder (New Phila.), a principal on Rea’s government services team, will take the reigns as our first-ever leader of The Rea Academy. Over the next few years, Annie will transition away from client work to eventually assume this role full-time. The Rea Academy program not only encompasses the annual continuing professional education requirements CPAs must meet, it will also be responsible for facilitating new employee orientation and ongoing training and development opportunities. INTERNSHIP PROGRAM Every tax season and during the summer months, you can always find a handful of interns working throughout the firm. Our internship program is a win-win for everyone. The students get hands-on experience and a glimpse into a career in public accounting, and our existing team members gain valuable leadership experience while helping identify potential new hires. Now that The Rea Advantage is in place, we’re stepping our internship program up a notch. Our goal is to find highly qualified internship applicants. We will then give them an expanded experience at each of our offices. In the past, our interns were classified as either “audit” or “tax.” Now, after being provided the opportunity to work on tax, assurance, bookkeeping We received more than 300 applications for our winter internship program. From there, we interviewed 50 and ultimately selected 16 to come on board as interns. Ultimately, our goal is to convert our interns into full-time employees. The interns who show superior communication skills, adaptability, work ethic and grit may have the opportunity to join the firm full-time after graduation. TOBACCO CESSATION PROGRAM Like every business, we are challenged with health care costs and are concerned about employee well-being. As such, the firm will soon implement a tobacco cessation program. Any employee on Rea’s health care plan who self-identifies as a tobacco user will have the option to complete a tobacco cessation program. Completion of the program will result in no increase in their health care contribution for 2016. The goal of this program is to ultimately move Rea to a 100 percent tobaccofree workforce. Since the program has been announced, several team members have already found success in their journey to quit smoking. Never stop learning.  Have fun. Enjoy the journey… THE REA WAY