The Bonadio Group, a Top 50 Firm based in Rochester, New York, has been making sure to hold onto talent and bring in new hires as the accounting profession, like other industries, struggles to fill the talent pipeline.
CEO Bruce Zicari has been taking steps to improve the employee experience to solve the recruiting and retention challenges faced by his firm and its peers. “Recruiting and retention have been incredibly, incredibly difficult and challenging,” he recently told Accounting Today. “We have invested very heavily in the recruiting and retention area. In the past, our HR people and recruiters have combed the marketplace, found candidates, and sent those candidates ultimately to our partners. We decided in the last 12 months that we needed to have heavy involvement from our partners, principals and managers.”
Bonadio identified approximately 30 people throughout the firm who are referred to as “talent ambassadors.”
“They are people that have been involved in the recruiting process in the past,” said Zicari. “They like being involved in it. They’re good at it, and they work hand in hand with HR. They help HR identify and screen candidates. They immediately will meet with the candidates, whether it’s by a conference call or in person.”
Increasing the involvement from Bonadio’s partners, principals and managers earlier on in the recruiting process has helped entice more talent to join the firm. Bonadio has also widened its outreach to colleges and universities to bring in a more diverse set of recruits. “That’s been a priority for us,” said Zicari. “Through diversity, equity and inclusion, it’s very important to us to attract and retain a more diverse talent pool.”
In reaching out to new candidates, Bonadio highlights what differentiates it from other firms. “We think our culture is very unique for a large firm,” said Zicari. “We think it definitely separates us from our competition. DE&I is important to us. We are a purpose-driven culture. The foundation of that is built around creating opportunities for our people and our clients. Growth and opportunity go hand in hand, and then, of course, supporting and giving back to our communities.”
Bonadio works to support new hires once they arrive at the firm through a mentorship program. “We have a very unique partner mentoring program,” said Zicari. “Every single person, no matter who you are in the firm, no matter what level, you have a partner mentor. There are over 900 people in the firm, and every single person is connected to and has a partner mentor to help them wade through their career and help them sort out their different career opportunities.”
Bonadio also offers a hybrid work policy that enables employees to work remotely, which has become a must for many firms since the pandemic.
Picking a path
Young employees are attracted to various practice areas that might interest them, and the consulting area caters to those niches.
“Some very much enjoy the traditional accounting and tax career path, but we get a lot of young professionals that really want to explore other avenues,” said Zicari. “Fortunately, we have those opportunities for them. We have a very large consulting practice and there are so many other areas within our firm that they can get involved with, whether it’s IT consulting, business valuation, fraud or forensic.”
Some young employees find out more about those practice areas once they start working at the firm and request to be transferred when they develop an interest. “That’s the great thing about accounting,” said Zicari. “You can enjoy the traditional accounting and tax, or there are so many other areas that you can get involved with and learn.”
Among those areas are cryptocurrency, cybersecurity, wealth management, and environmental, social and governance reporting.
“We are heavily into crypto,” said Zicari. “Some of our younger professionals are leading the way and teaching us a lot about it. That’s been a huge growth area for us. We are making big investments with our accounting association, Moore Global, to really get into ESG in a big way. Those certainly are two areas that we are heavily investing in and we believe are going to be high growth areas in the future. Outsourced accounting for the last five years has been a big growth area, with double- and triple-digit growth over the last five years, and another area where some of our traditional professionals have been transferred. Cybersecurity is another other huge opportunity that’s been growing very rapidly. Our wealth management practice is another hyper growth area.”
During its college recruiting efforts, Bonadio discusses the various career paths available. “We certainly try to make sure that when we go out to the campuses that we showcase all of the different opportunities we have in our firm, versus focusing on accounting and tax,” said Zicari. “We really try to highlight all the different consulting disciplines, all the different opportunities to grow in their careers.”
For existing employees, Bonadio has been taking steps to encourage retention. “We’re really spending a lot of resources on improving the people experience,” said Zicari. “We went through an extensive process where we essentially did ‘stay interviews’ of our people throughout the firm. What was important to them? What were we doing well? What did we need to improve upon? And how do we make a career at our firm and in public accounting more attractive? They came back with a list of things for us to work on, as well as recommended solutions. And I can tell you that we’re taking action on a lot of those things.”
Even during the busy tax season, Bonadio limited its employees to 55 hours a week. “That’s something that we don’t see many other firms doing,” said Zicari. “But I do think if we’re going to make this a more attractive career, the experience they have has to be different going forward. We have to make some bold moves like giving them more work-life balance and taking some of the compression out of busy season. We’re taking a lot of steps to enhance their experience.”
