Small businesses are increasingly relying on their accountants for advice on hiring as the labor shortage continues during the pandemic.
Over one-third of business owners are willing to pay 10% more than they currently pay for an accountant who provides advice on onboarding employees, optimizing company culture, or understanding how company morale can boost business results, according to a new survey. It found that 41% of the employers surveyed said they would pay their accountants more if they offered advice on people.
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People management was among the top concerns cited by the business owners polled by Gusto. When asked to select their top two concerns, “Finance and accounting” was listed by 47.3% of owners, and “People operations and management” was listed by 30.7% of owners. Concerns around people management increased among small businesses with more than 25 employees, where 47% of owners listed people management as an area where advice was needed most. Advisory services may represent the biggest business opportunity out there for accountants right now as a way to attract growing businesses with these needs.
Looking at the areas where advice related to people operations was needed most, the top areas included employee recruitment and retention, along with developing an affordable benefits package. The results point to the labor shortage affecting accounting and other sectors of the economy, along with the need to develop a strong and cohesive company culture, especially with the shift to remote work that has been accelerated by the pandemic.
“We wanted to put out some research around how business owners’ needs from accountants are changing because of everything that has been going on not only in the past year, but longer term over the past decade or even two decades,” said Luke Pardue, an economist at Gusto. “Even before the pandemic, the way that people and business owners managed their teams was changing, and accountants and accounting professionals were already playing an increasingly important role. When you think about how automation and software were taking the place of some of the work that accountants had been doing previously, more accountants were using this financial expertise. They had to answer personnel questions in order to broaden their horizons and their business services. They were giving more advice about people operations already before the pandemic.”
Accountants have needed to adjust not only to remote work, but to the new COVID-19 relief programs introduced by the federal government. “Businesses were experimenting with remote work or flexible work schedules, four-day weeks, and things like that, and then in 2020, COVID hit,” said Pardue. “Within weeks, a third of the U.S. workforce was working from home. The employment situation became so much more complex, not only because of these pandemic trends like remote work and business shutdowns, but also government programs like paid sick leave, Paycheck Protection Program loans and employee retention credits. All of this put accountants at the forefront of these people operations with their financial expertise.”
Business owners would like more advice from their accountants on what specific steps to take to take care of their teams, the survey found, with 46% of owners saying it was “very important” for their accountant to offer business advice, and 29% of owners saying it was “fairly important.”
Gusto is rolling out a
“The accelerator program is designed for firm leaders,” said Jaclyn Anku, partner education manager at Gusto. “It’s a self-paced course that also provides CPE credits, and it gives firm leaders everything they need to feel confident in building their People Advisory practice. It takes a step-by-step approach to walking them through how to package, staff, price and sell People Advisory. And it goes way above and beyond teaching best practices. It also provides over 25 turnkey tools and resources that leaders can either plug and play and use, or customize to best fit their own firm and clients. Firm leaders can choose the one that’s right for their team and clients. The staffing guide is a really critical component of the program because we know that there’s a huge talent shortage in the accounting profession. Enabling firm leaders to attract, retain and engage their own team is incredibly important. The program shows a way in which they can provide very compelling career opportunities for their own team to help them further their careers.”
The pricing calculator aims to take the guesswork out of the margins that a firm can make from delivering People Advisory services and the marketing and sales guides include a pre-built People Advisory web page. “We’ve really tried to take the friction out of a firm leader’s experience and all of the things that they have to think about in terms of building a new practice,” said Anku. “In developing the program, we partnered with some leading People Advisors who really helped lead the charge and implement People Advisory as a practice line following the accelerators curriculum.”
One of them is Josh Lance, managing director of Lance CPA Group, a firm with locations in Chicago and Dallas that specializes in serving clients in the craft brewery industry. “Adding these people advisory services into our current service mix has been a big boost for us,” said Lance. “We’ve increased revenues significantly as a result of adding these services, and we’re finding a lot of success there. I think it’s a need that a lot of small business clients have. Accountants have a real good opportunity here to provide these additional services and really help clients stay in business and stay afloat.”
