It’s a good news/bad news/good news story. Demand for the services that CPA firms provide is widely expected to remain strong into the foreseeable future.
The bad news is that an impending tide of Baby Boomer retirements will tax accounting firms’ ability to sustain and build the human capital needed to keep up with that demand.
The second bit of good news is that progressive firms are meeting that challenge, setting an example for others to follow with a mantra of programs such as flexible work schedules to lure and retain both veteran and younger employees.
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“We like to say that we’re so flexible that we don’t have a flexible work policy,” said Carolyn D’Anna, CPA, partner and managing director of human resources for J.H. Cohn, a Roseland, N.J.-based firm with about 1,000 employees and a heavy concentration in the Northeast.
“We understand that there needs to be that flexibility, allowing people to work from home” when a family or other need arises, she said. Although that flexibility is principally tapped by women, “It’s available to men as well,” she noted.
At Bloomington, Minn.-based RSM McGladrey, flexibility includes the concept of the “flex year.” Teresa Hopke, director of talent management for the firm, explained that some employees can take summers off, but be paid over 12 months. While this opportunity is most often exploited by mothers coping with kids’ vacation schedules, one male employee sheds his CPA identity during the summer to fight forest fires.
WORK/LIFE GOAL-SETTING
But it’s not enough to open the door: Hopke said that employees need to be prodded to think about the possibilities. “In addition to their business goals, we ask them to set a work/life goal.”
Several McGladrey employees have used goal-setting to preserve a little sanity during the busy season, vowing to eat dinner at home regularly, or attend a child’s birthday party. The exercise “forces them to think about the fact that they should have a life, too,” Hopke explained.
J.H. Cohn also has a “professional women’s program.” D’Anna revealed that 60 percent of accounting graduates today are female, and turnover rates are typically higher among women.
ENABLING SKILLS
Other retention-oriented efforts at J.H. Cohn include a learning and development department, which offers both technical training and “enabling skills,” such as communication and networking. Along similar lines, the firm runs a “partner academy” to provide managerial and career development training to high-potential managers.
But what if partnership isn’t an employee’s goal — at least not for now? Recognizing the fact that employees often have varying career objectives led to a conceptual framework that Big Four firm Deloitte calls “mass career customization.”
