Wondering which category of staff is most likely to leave your firm? Look to the middle, suggest the results of an ongoing survey.
"Who's most likely to leave? Directors, senior managers and managers," Seth Fineberg, the founder of consultancy Accountants Forward, told the attendees of the second annual Bridging the Gap Conference, held this week in Chicago.
Fineberg based the advice on the preliminary results of the inaugural Accountants Annual Professional Satisfaction Survey, according to which over a third (38%) of directors and senior managers reported that they were dissatisfied, versus only a quarter (25%) who said they were highly satisfied. The gap for managers was similarly stark, with 33% dissatisfied, and 17% highly satisfied.
"Once you hit partner or the higher levels, you're going to stay put, but the folks right in the middle seem to be a little more shaky about staying," Fineberg added.
Fully 80% of partners said they were highly satisfied, and at the other end of the spectrum, 50% of staff were highly satisfied, and only half that (25%) were dissatisfied.
Interestingly, the trouble in the middle included firm sizes: Respondents from midsized firms (those with 25-99 staff) were equally likely to be dissatisfied or highly satisfied (tied at 33%); at all other sizes of firm, a far larger proportion was highly satisfied.
The source of the discomfort
The survey is still in its early days, with close to 200 respondents, and the organizers are hoping to bring in many more participants, particularly among younger accounts, but the preliminary results suggest some possible sources for dissatisfaction in the accounting profession — and they're not always the ones you'd expect.
One possible cause might be feeling that their firms don't care about them. For instance, only 32% of respondents said that their firm supported them when dealing with a difficult client. "Don't ever tolerate that," said Fineberg.
"And the majority of respondents are not comfortable asking for help in a number of areas," he added. "Only 32% felt they were comfortable asking for help with long-term illnesses or disability; only 21% for stress management; only 19% for mental health; and only 14% for burnout. All these things should be a priority in your practice."
Meanwhile, only a third of respondents said that their colleagues know about their passions and interests outside of work.
"We're not getting to know each other," said Randy Crabtree, the host of Bridging the Gap, cofounder of Tri-Merit Specialty Tax, and the originator of the satisfaction survey. "We're getting to know each other as the auditor, as the tax person, the advisor, the head of HR — we're not getting to know that we love going hiking or mountain biking, and we write books and we're artists. That's going to affect satisfaction within a firm. I hate that 33%."
All those could be contributing to feelings of disengagement among accountants; equally interesting were the factors that don't seem to be contributing.
"This was very interesting: We found that the long hours that you all work had very little bearing on the career satisfaction," Fineberg reported. Over two-fifths of those working more than 60 hours a week during busy season reported being highly satisfied with their careers, he noted, and two-thirds (65%) of those who work more than 50 hours during the rest of the years were also highly satisfied.
"It's basically what Michael Bloomberg said: 'If you like what you do, you're going to do more of it; if you do more of it, you're going to get better at it; if you get better at doing it, more and more people let you do it for them,'" explained Hank Berkowitz of HB Publishing & Marketing, who worked with Crabtree and Fineberg on the survey.
"So burnout may not necessarily be related to the long hours and the demanding clients," he added. "We need to find out."
The survey is still open; to participate, follow
Crabtree, Fineberg and Berkowitz plan to pursue a series of surveys diving into why accountants stay or leave their firms and a host of other aspects of career satisfaction.
"This is not a one-time survey; this is going to be a living thing," Crabtree explained. "This is going to evolve based on the data we get now."
