Most of the retention tactics that accounting firms use to keep staff engaged and on board work immediately: Employees can enjoy higher compensation, expanded benefits, greater flexibility, more time, and so on right now. In a job market where accountants are in incredibly high demand, these sorts of real-time benefits and incentives are certainly important — but this is also a market that thinks two years is a long time to stay in any one place.
To counter that second trend, there are other, less short-term ways to promote retention — approaches that explicitly treat long tenure at a firm as something to recognize and reward.
The first (perhaps obviously) is literally to recognize those who have been with the firm for a long time. For instance, Bartlett, Pringle & Wolf in California reported, "We invite the entire firm to an annual anniversary luncheon at a local restaurant, to celebrate milestone anniversaries with BPW. The managing partner acknowledges the individual and their number of years at BPW, and presents them with a gift from the firm."
Celebrations and gifts are a great start; another, increasingly common idea is to recognize that after any particularly long time doing the same thing at the same place, people may need a serious break — and that's why 13 different members of this year's Best Firms to Work For offer some version of a sabbatical program.
Florida's Saltmarsh, Cleveland & Gunn has such a sabbatical program in place for all employees who reach their 10-year anniversary, and then every fifth year after that, where they are awarded additional weeks specifically "to unwind and connect with their loved ones."
Hawaii Accounting makes the recuperative aspects of such a long break clear: "Any employee who meets their five-year anniversary with the company is granted a five-week paid sabbatical to travel, restore, spend extended time with friends and family worry-free.
Five years seems to be the most common milestone for offering sabbaticals, though it's not universal. Texas-based ATKG scales its sabbaticals based on length of time with the firm, starting at two weeks after five years, rising to four weeks after 10 years and for every five years after that, while Georgia-based Bennett Thrasher offers them to client-facing staff who reach the senior manager level.
However the sabbaticals are structured, they're a great way to encourage longer tenures, and to recognize the unique professional nature of accounting work, and the stresses that go along with it.
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