There is one big thing keeping the leaders of the top firms in the accounting profession up at night, and it’s staffing.
That’s not a surprise, of course: Finding and keeping employees has been a primary concern for them for a decade or more. But while in previous years it has been just one among a handful of major concerns, over the course of 2021 the war for talent completely eclipsed all the other problems they’re facing, to the point where more than two-thirds of this year’s Top 100 Firms and Regional Leaders cited it as a critical issue — well more than twice as many as listed the second-most common issue (keeping up with technology).
To be sure, having waged the war for talent for many years, these firms haven’t been caught flat-footed by the Great Resignation. They boosted salaries (often more than once) and handed out a wide range of bonuses; they improved benefits and added new ones (expanded parental leave and lower medical insurance costs were popular); and they embraced flexibility even more than before, with a particular emphasis on hybrid work environments. They also turbocharged their recruiting efforts, hiring internal and external experts and exploring new candidate pools both in terms of the schools where they recruit and the diversity of communities they draw from.
All those efforts have paid off to varying degrees, but there’s still plenty of anxiety among firms that need new employees to handle increased demand and ensure partner succession; there’s also a concern on the part of many that this problem is only going to get worse, with fewer people becoming CPAs and other professions and industries luring away talent. It’s also clear that no single initiative or bonus or HR policy is a magic bullet, and that means firms need to look for more solutions to their staffing problem.
That thought led me to considering the rest of the problems that firms faced, and one thing that quickly became clear was that those very problems might contain valuable solutions to the staffing issue. Take, for instance, keeping up with technology: Leveraging new tools to automate work and streamline processes can reduce (and in some cases practically eliminate) the need for warm bodies in a service line; those and other tools can also enable firms to significantly widen their candidate pools, while also enabling them to take on more interesting work that’s more attractive to talent.
The move to that kind of advisory work was another concern for firms, but the faster they minimize their compliance workload and maximize their consulting and advisory services, the more excited staff will be about their jobs, and the more interested candidates will be in signing on.
Many firms noted that they are worried about maintaining their culture in a remote-work environment. Where this is not merely a pretext for requiring employees to return to the office, it will hopefully lead firms to upgrade their management practices and cultural goals to engage all staff, whether remote, hybrid or in office.
Managing clients was another issue that some considered critical, with firms looking to identify their ideal client base and cull underperforming or just plain annoying clients. There can be little doubt that getting rid of the jerks and upgrading to a roster of vibrant and interesting clients that understand the value of working with an accountant can be a big boost for firms, not least when it comes to retaining current staff.
It may seem obvious, but the lesson here is that every problem that holds a firm back weighs on its ability to recruit and retain staff — and every solution that propels a firm forward makes it more attractive to the talent the profession sorely needs.
