Create a work environment that is collaborative and empowering and you’ll never have a shortage of employees.

Let’s face it money is great, but it’s not everything. People want to belong adn be appreciated. Firms that learn how to do create that type of work environment will win the talent war.

One of my clients enjoys a steady stream of candidates even though it has a small practice and unique market audience. In fact, candidates willing take a pay cut to work there. Why?

Because that firm is co-creating with its employees a work environment that honors their professionalism, expertise and family life. Listened and made changes that attracted some of the best talent.

Other firms can do the same.

Dina Beach Lynch, JD
Ombudsman

The firm I have been with for the past three years (my first since graduation) employs about 20 staff and has about five CPAs. Our busy season lasts year round, leaving me insufficient time to study for the exam. Starting salaries at our firm and all other firms I interviewed with don’t match up with national averages (which are disappointing in and of themselves) and raises haven’t even come close to matching the cost of living increases. This makes it challenging to afford the $2,700 CPA prep classes that boast the high pass rates and the gauntlet of application fees that the state boards, AICPA, and testing centers levy on us (estimated $800 to sit for all four parts). On a $32,000 salary with rent and a car payment, and the student loan payments for the extra year in school, that’s expensive. I do think, however, that my graduate degree was worthwhile aside from merely qualifying for the exam.

My experience in auditing thus far has been eye opening. On my first audit, I was sent to a client alone by the audit manager with the prior year’s workpapers and told to just duplicate them. There was no documentation of internal control or audit planning that I saw in the permanent or current working files. I was given a simple brief introduction to the client over the phone before being sent on my way. The client had downsized their accounting department from 10 to 3 staff, had no controller, and management was unapproachable for questions. After all, what management would want to visit with a rookie staff accountant anyway? So, after fumbling through the audit for about 4 weeks, trying to recreate the audit from prior year workpapers that were little more than analytical procedures, the partner had to come out and help me finish the audit. That audit manager is now a partner (he never came to the job site during the course of that audit), and the partner that helped me finish the audit was not in the least concerned that there were large pieces of the audit (required based on what I had learned in school and CPA exam prep) that were missing. Welcome to the real public accounting!

During busy season for the tax guys, I helped out with a few returns and was instructed by a financial planning partner, also a CPA, to deduct $8,000 in personal credit card interest on a client’s individual return. He knew it wasn’t deductible. I’m glad I wasn’t the manager being pressured to sign that return.

In any case, all I can think about is passing the CPA exam so I can get out of public accounting. The working conditions are absolutely miserable, the pay is less than lousy. The other staff and I are constantly being beaten about the head and neck for missing budgets and not meeting our billable hour goals (upon which our phantom bonuses we were sold when hired are based).

The really disappointing part is that I continue to talk to many of my collegues from school who work elsewhere and they find similar conditions in their firms, which is why I’m not even bothering to look for another position until after I’ve passed the CPA exam. I love the clients and get along with them very well, and that is the only satisfying part of the job so far.

I sat for the LSAT and did well and could have traded two more years in school for a more than threefold increase in starting salary. Or, even better, I could have reduced my time in school by a year and received a computer systems degree and started at twice my current salary and work from eight to five most days.

The great thing, however, about public accounting is that after I pass the CPA exam and have about five years of experience, I can get out of the public side for good and go into industry and make more money and have a more satisfactory work experience and quality of life.

I definitely agree with Ann. The lack of respect for staff is absolutely amazing (if we’re working until ten in the evening for three months out of the year, feed us every once in a while!). I’ve been berated in front of other staff and the partners think it’s some kind of big joke (the good part is that they are equal opportunity with their abuse). All in all, I have lost a large amount of respect for the profession since graduating and can see why things like Enron happen.

After working almost 15 years for a Fortune 500 company and being caught in a downsizing, I eventually went back to school and got my Masters in Accounting. I fully intended to work in public accounting after graduation. However, the working conditions – mainly, lack of respect for employees and poor business ethics – have turned me off. I quit one company after only two days because of unreasonable travel requirements. Another, smaller, firm, fired me after three months because I was asking too many questions – ie: why their proposals on audit staff and review procedures were not just misleading, but flat-out not true in many cases, why audits from a couple years ago were not complete, why were they asking me to sign off saying I had done certain procedures I had not.

The bottom line – after working for many years at a company that was rated in the top 100 of companies to work for, after being treated with respect, after learning to treat customers with respect and act ethically, I just couldn’t adapt and don’t want to adapt to disrespectful and unethical conditions. I hear my stories are not that unusual. I guess that’s why public accounting is a young person’s game – it’s only gonna work for you if you haven’t experienced respectful and ethical working conditions before.