STAFFING & RECRUITING

Don’t assume they know how good you have it.

By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Staff: Managing Your #1 Asset

Conveying to staff why it’s great to be a partner at a CPA firm is one of the weakest areas of partner performance. It’s also a best practice for managing staff.

MORE: What It Takes to Get a Promotion in Accounting | Generational Differences Can’t Be Ignored | Eight Strategies for Recruiting | Training? CPE? They’re Not the Same | What Leadership Looks and Feels at CPA Firms | The Importance of Great Bosses | Why Staff Leave CPA Firms … and How to Stop Them | How Accounting Staffing Has Changed
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True Story

We worked with a five-partner firm on the East Coast on succession planning. The partners were all in their late 50s and 60s and two or three of them planned to retire in the next five years. They were wrestling with a tough decision: Do we merge into a larger firm as our exit strategy or do we/can we gradually turn the firm over to our three managers, all of whom have the talent and experience to be a partner? They dreaded the former option and preferred the latter.
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Job descriptions for staff accountant, senior accountant, manager and partner.

By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Staff: Managing Your #1 Asset

“The last person I ever want working for me is someone who says, ‘That’s not in my job description.’” – Neil deGrasse Tyson, cosmologist and astrophysicist

“Well-written and effectively developed job descriptions are communication tools that allow both employees and supervisors to clearly understand the expectations of the role, its essential duties, the competences and responsibilities, along with the required educational credentials and experience.” – Mary Anne Kennedy, HR Daily Advisor

MORE: Generational Differences Can’t Be Ignored | Surveying Your Staff: Why and How | Why Developing Women Partners Matters | Six Tips for Setting Compensation | Eleven Things That Good Mentors Do | How Remote Work Is Impacting Accounting Firms | How to Solve the Big Disconnect in Talent Management
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This post addresses the four most common positions at a CPA firm: staff accountant, senior accountant, manager and partner.

There is no such thing as a standard job description for these four positions. Each firm must define them in ways that make sense for their practice. If ever there were job descriptions that should have flexibility built into them, most certainly they would be CPA firm positions, because the expectations vary as much by the type of assignments as by their title.
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Don’t stereotype, but don’t pretend all ages are the same, either.

By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Staff: Managing Your #1 Asset

“Each generation imagines itself more intelligent than the one before it and wiser than the one that comes after it.” – George Orwell

The following was written by Scott Steadman, who heads up Jacksonville, FL-based Steadman Valuations and Forensic Accounting LLC. Read with caution: Statements about the traits of an entire generation are, of course, generalizations that do not necessarily apply to every individual in the grouping.

MORE: Surveying Your Staff: Why and How | Better Communication = Better Retention | A Better Way to Provide Performance Feedback | Staff Crave Advancement and Challenge | Give the Recognition Your Staff Needs | Make Work Flexibility Work for Everyone | What Relevance Means for Staffing in Accounting
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Baby Boomers (Born 1946-1964)

Early on, a strong economy and stable lifestyle made Baby Boomers generally optimistic about their future and the future of the United States. Once known as idealistic dreamers, Boomers were forced to focus on their economic future and real-world concerns over money and stability. In the movie “Wall Street,” when Gordon Gekko said “Greed is good,” he was speaking to (and for) Baby Boomers.
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