STAFFING & RECRUITING

Why Developing Women Partners Matters

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womand and man seated side by side at table in front of laptop, hanging plants in background

Several experts on offer tips on how.

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

“If I have 500 partners and 400 are men, I figure I have 150 underperforming partners.” – A Big 4 managing partner

The CPA profession suffers mightily from a shortage of labor. There are several reasons for this, in no particular order:

  1. Accounting is not a popular major in college.

MORE: A Better Way to Provide Performance Feedback | Training? CPE? They’re Not the Same | Six Tips for Setting Compensation | Staff Crave Advancement and Challenge | What Leadership Looks and Feels at CPA Firms | Eleven Things That Good Mentors Do | Give the Recognition Your Staff Needs | The Importance of Great Bosses | How Remote Work Is Impacting Accounting Firms | Make Work Flexibility Work for Everyone | Why Staff Leave CPA Firms … and How to Stop Them | How to Solve the Big Disconnect in Talent Management
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  1. Since the turn of this century, a dreadful shortage of accounting professors has challenged universities’ ability to meet student demand for accounting courses.
  2. The CPA firm industry has high turnover, generally in the 15-20 percent range. Reasons include the technical demands of the work, busy seasons, long hours, the profession’s requirement that people wait 10 to 20 years before making partner and the failure of partners to mentor staff.

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Tax Season Memo from Staff to Managing Partner

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What if your staff didn’t write this email?

By Hitendra Patil

Congratulations if your staff wrote such an email to you. (But what if they wanted to and didn’t?)

Join the study: Are you an owner, partner, or managing partner with talent challenges? We’re conducting research to uncover answers. If you’re interested, please email me here. 

Dear [Managing Partner’s Name],

As we start thinking about the next tax season, I am reaching out with a request that reflects the sentiment of many of us in the firm. I know tax season is crucial, and we all understand its importance. However, after all these years, we’re in a never-ending marathon. The long hours, the constant pressure—it’s draining. What if we could flip the script this year and make the next tax season, dare I say, a little less soul-crushing?

I have a few ideas—some might seem unconventional, but we must get creative to avoid the same burnout cycles. Hear me out, in no particular order: READ MORE →

A Better Way to Provide Performance Feedback

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two men seated across desk from each other, having discussion

Yes, we included a form. But we almost didn’t.

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

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” – Ken Blanchard

“Average players want to be left alone. Good players want to be coached. Great players want to be told the truth.” – Doc Rivers, NBA basketball coach

MORE: Training? CPE? They’re Not the Same | Six Tips for Setting Compensation | Staff Crave Advancement and Challenge | What Leadership Looks and Feels at CPA Firms | Eleven Things That Good Mentors Do | Give the Recognition Your Staff Needs | The Importance of Great Bosses | How Remote Work Is Impacting Accounting Firms | Make Work Flexibility Work for Everyone | Why Staff Leave CPA Firms … and How to Stop Them | How to Solve the Big Disconnect in Talent Management | What Relevance Means for Staffing in Accounting | How Accounting Staffing Has Changed
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This post is divided into two sections:

  • The progressive view of providing performance feedback, which a minority of firms today practice. Whenever something new to the field of practice management appears in a major way, many firms are slow to embrace it. Examples: Proactive selling, going paperless, adopting the cloud and managing a CPA firm like a real business.
  • The traditional view of providing performance feedback, which a majority of firms still practice today. If asked why the traditional practice continues, partners often respond, “That’s the way we’ve always done it. It ain’t perfect, but we are reasonably satisfied with it.”

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Training? CPE? They’re Not the Same

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three people: woman between two men pointing at desktop computer screen in explanation

The three types of training needed and 21 best practices for providing it.

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

“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with an education.” – Mark Twain

MORE: Six Tips for Setting Compensation | Staff Crave Advancement and Challenge | What Leadership Looks and Feels at CPA Firms | Eleven Things That Good Mentors Do | Give the Recognition Your Staff Needs | The Importance of Great Bosses | How Remote Work Is Impacting Accounting Firms | Make Work Flexibility Work for Everyone | Why Staff Leave CPA Firms … and How to Stop Them | How to Solve the Big Disconnect in Talent Management | What Relevance Means for Staffing in Accounting | How Accounting Staffing Has Changed
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

 

We cringe when CPAs use “training” and “CPE” synonymously.

  • CPE coursework is often reactive, taken to maintain a CPA license. It may or may not educate. It may or may not be the type of education an individual needs. Many CPAs look upon CPE as a nuisance that is necessary to comply with professional regulations. The smaller the firm and the older the CPA, the more likely this is the case.
  • Training is primarily proactive, undertaken voluntarily to expand a person’s knowledge, performance and capabilities. The training aligns with what the person needs to do the job and provide value to the firm and its clients.

Ideally, the training identified as needed also qualifies as CPE.
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Six Tips for Setting Compensation

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young woman holding giant dollar sign in modern office

Plus 17 extraordinary benefits to consider offering.

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

“If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it, you almost don’t have to manage them.” – Jack Welch

“Pay your people the least possible and you’ll get from them the same.” – Malcolm Forbes

Every CPA industry survey we’ve seen for decades shows that compensation is either No. 1 in importance to staff or close to it.

MORE: Staff Crave Advancement and Challenge | What Leadership Looks and Feels at CPA Firms | Eleven Things That Good Mentors Do | Give the Recognition Your Staff Needs | The Importance of Great Bosses | How Remote Work Is Impacting Accounting Firms | Make Work Flexibility Work for Everyone | Why Staff Leave CPA Firms … and How to Stop Them | How to Solve the Big Disconnect in Talent Management | What Relevance Means for Staffing in Accounting | How Accounting Staffing Has Changed
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

 

Our feeling is that compensation is the ante to enter or stay in the game. Put another way, according to Jeremy Wortman:

If college graduates are looking for their first job, or if a young person with a little experience is job hunting, compensation is huge. If a person has two offers, one for $60,000 and the other for $65,000, the higher offer will get the person almost every time. But if the offers are $500 apart and the person likes the firm offering the lower salary better, it’s likely that the lower-paying firm will get the nod.
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