I recently wrote an article about the
I know why they’re leaving your firm, because they tell me when they join ours.
I’m not here to start a war, but I am here to stand in direct opposition to accounting as usual. If you want to disrupt public accounting for the better, read on. If you prefer the status quo, you don’t need to read any further.
How do you make your firm one that staff love — or at the very least like — working for?
You’ve got to start by looking around. If you don’t call the shots at your firm, you better hope you have the right partner group that is truly interested in evolving. If those who do make the decisions are on cruise control until retirement, then you should strongly consider exiting stage left. The cold reality is that a substantial number of CPAs leave firms because of inflexible, slow-moving bureaucratic leadership. If that description resembles your firm, you’ve already lost the war for talent.
Assuming you can effect change at your firm, where do you start?
My belief, supported by my experience at Dark Horse, is that change happens through purpose and autonomy. It’s not the long hours that drive people out of public accounting. It’s devoting those hours to a spin cycle, merry-go-round ride of neverending work that is devoid of purpose outside of making money for the firm and the occasional client conversation where you see the fruits of your labor. Accountants, and humans in general, have a high capacity and hunger for work they find meaningful and stimulating. Someone’s life work is one of the most important things to reflect upon in later years. If you think that the number of tax returns filed, the quality of audit working papers or the revenue generated for the firm will result in a deep sense of fulfillment and a life well-lived . . . I’m not even going to finish that sentence because you know where it’s going.
Create a meaningful story that employees can play a meaningful part in.
If you were hoping I’d be providing a list of solutions to solve your talent problem, I’m sorry to disappoint you. A competent therapist won’t tell you how to fix your problems, but instead will shine a light on the real issues at-hand and help you find your own solutions true to who you are — or in our case the brand you aspire to create with your talent. I don’t believe there is a set of hard-and-fast best practices for retaining talent. I believe you have to know whoyou are as a leader and as a firm, intentionally hire people who believe in your vision and ensure the firm operates in a way that supports this vision.
What is your vision?
What kind of work do you want your firm to be known for? What type of people do you want to work with and for? How are you improving the lives of your clients and your team? What is the glue that keeps your team together, uniformly striving toward a common outcome? How does your firm facilitate personal and professional growth? If you’re struggling for answers, this is where you need to get ultra-clear in order to begin to build a firm your people will love to work for. Instead of worrying about how to retain staff, focus your efforts on alignment and a deeper sense of connection to why people would work at your firm in the first place. There are just too many firms that don’t do this and have thus commoditized themselves from the viewpoint of talent. When they leave your firm, often they are actually leaving public accounting. You can’t afford it. The profession can’t afford it.
And when it comes to autonomy . . .
Richard Branson once said, “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” This may be one of the most eloquent illustrations of the kind of autonomy you should strive to create in your firm. The idea of allowing staff autonomy often gives way to a fear of losing control or of sacrificing quality. Such fears are often rooted in a binary view on what autonomy is. It’s not a choice between micromanagement and a laissez-faire approach. Instead, think of it more as a spectrum. The aim is to guide and instruct, to provide the goalposts and boundaries, to allow for the freedom for staff to be able to find their own way without spinning their wheels unnecessarily, to make and learn from mistakes. After they’ve been trained, how are you treating them? Are you overworking them? Do they have compensation that is meaningfully correlated with the revenue they are managing for the firm? Are you providing them with the freedom they need to balance their work and personal lives effectively? Are you connecting with them on a personal level? Are you giving them work and opportunities that could provide them the skills and the means to leave you? All of this requires trust. Are you capable of trusting your employees? Is it any surprise that very few in your firm are what you’d consider to be “partner material”?
The answer to how to attract and retain talent is less about what you can offer and more about who you are and what you stand for.
Those attracted only by the former will leave when a better offer is on the table. Those who can see clearly and identify with the latter will be committed for the long haul.
