Accountants more likely to return to offices than others: Study

July 1, 2021 5:22 PM

Accountants, it seems, like their offices more than most people.

In a recent survey of close to 500 managers, executives and senior leadership in banking, financial planning, fintechs, financial services, accounting and other related industries, leaders at accounting firms were far more likely to be working full-time at their firms’ offices; much more likely to expect to keep their current office footprint after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic; and more likely to predict their employees will all be working full-time in their firms’ offices a year from now.

The results of the survey, conducted by Accounting Today’s parent company, Arizent, in mid-April, indicate that the profession has not fully embraced the remote work revolution brought on by the pandemic, viewing it as a temporary solution to an immediate problem.

Among other insights, the responses also show that accounting leaders are more concerned about the impact of the pandemic on the economy than their counterparts, and that they think they did a very good job supporting their employees over the past 15 months.

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Accounting leaders expect that more than half of their staff will be back in the office full-time within a year.

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Almost two-thirds of accountants say they aren't planning any changes to how much office space they have. The closest to that level of the other industries that were surveyed were wealth managers, at 49%, in large part because they too rely heavily on personal interactions with clients. The other industries were much more likely to plan to downsize their office space.

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Over a third of the accounting firm leaders surveyed are working in the office full-time currently — twice the overall rate among respondents.

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Accounting respondents are also less likely to be interested in working from home, compared to their counterparts.

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That said, respondents from accounting were closer to average in terms of their expectations that their firms will allow significant WFH after the pandemic — though still not quite in line.

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Here's one reason to suggest that accounting leaders view pandemic-related changes to working practices as temporary: In the majority of areas, they are significantly less likely to permanently alter their policies because of the pandemic.

One major exception: They are more likely to permanently alter their approach to engaging with clients, possibly because many have realized that video calls offer a great way to keep in regular touch.

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When it comes to WFH policies in particular, accounting firm leaders are far less likely to expect to change those than any of the other industries surveyed.

The accounting leaders are much more likely to cite client meetings and maintaining employee performance and productivity as reasons for having a physical office location; the overwhelming majority (70%) don't think remote work has improved productivity.

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Clients were the primary factor in accounting leaders' plans around maintaining their office footprint (though, both anecdotally and in other Accounting Today surveys, firms have reported signficant success in engaging clients remotely over the past 15 months).

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Accounting leaders were tied for most confident, but overall, most business leaders gave themselves good grades for supporting staff through the coronavirus.

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Despite expecting more staff to return to their physical offices full-time in the future, accounting firms were much less likely to have implemented basic COVID precautions in their workplaces.

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Accounting leaders were also somewhat more likely not to offer incentives for staff to get vaccinated or to require vaccination — but then, most of the surveyed industries aren't implementing those either.

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Accounting firm leaders are more concerned about the impact of the pandemic on the economy, and how long it will last; only 13% of overall respondents thought COVID-19 would be a significant drag on the economy through the end of 2021, versus 23% of accountants, and 43% of all respondents are expecting a significant rebound beginning soon, versus only 31% of accountants.