fringe benefits are fringes no more: today they play a vital role in the competitive landscape for talent.
by rick telberg
for the aicpa career insider
the accounting and finance profession is clearly struggling mightily to address chronic staff shortages and work/life balance issues. as a result, benefits packages seem to be gaining increased importance in the battle for talent and competitive advantage.
[related report: “staffing: which benefits matter most”]
to be sure, employers in the tax, accounting and finance fields face hiring pressures little different from those found in other industries. and the attitudes of cpas are hardly unique to the cpa profession. the employment situation is a national, perhaps global, situation, requiring broad new economic and social policy initiatives.
until that day comes, however, businesses and employees alike will be facing the same issues. the winners in this struggle will gain a competitive advantage in a market where even the slightest advantage can be significant.in our research into the inner workings of the profession we are identifying which job benefits entice accountants the most and which kinds most firms and companies offer. first, the easy question: what bennies would come with the perfect job? not surprisingly, almost all, or 96 percent, would want paid vacations and health insurance, and 95 percent would want a pension plan or 401(k).
the next tier in the ideal package is about 20 percentage points less popular. seventy percent want dental insurance, and 77 percent want paid sick leave.
we drop almost as far to the next tier, where 59 percent want disability insurance, 56 percent want payroll direct deposit, 54 percent want life insurance, and 50 percent want education reimbursement.
generally, people report receiving those same benefits in about those same proportions. almost everybody gets paid vacations and health insurance, 91 percent have a pension plan, 80 percent enjoy payroll direct deposit, 79 percent get paid sick leave, 62 percent got disability insurance, and 57 percent get flexible spending accounts. life insurance and dental insurance were enjoyed by 73 and 63 percent, respectively.
so everybody’s happy, right?
maybe.
go ask an open-ended question and you’ll get an earful more about overtime and health insurance.
just listen for a moment:
— from a middle manager in public accounting: “work weeks over 45 hours are commonplace and are actually a form of pay cut. this needs to stop and more consideration shown for workload and time off with pay.”
— a senior executive had a good idea: “partners should be allowed a sabbatical of one month off every three years in addition to regular vacation.”
— from an hr department at a firm in red bank, n.j., stephen mazur wrote some chilling words: “soon i expect unions of cpas where members insist on lower hours.”
hey, maybe that’s what it takes? perish the thought!
health insurance comes up as often as time, and four times more than anything else. the employers’ gripe: the cost. the employees’ gripe: the coverage.
kirk gray, managing partner of a small firm in safford, ariz., echoes a common complaint: “health insurance is getting outrageously expensive even though we have quadrupled the deductible and tripled the co-pay. we receive 12to 22 percent increases year after year.”
many suggest that employees with employed spouses be able to decline the insurance, but, as one middle manager in an educational organization said, “how do firms compensate staff who do not require health insurance?”
despite the cost of insurance, it’s still the most common job benefit? yet it’s not enough.
“benefits are becoming more and more important in the accounting world as the marketplace for employees becomes more and more competitive,” said a senior partner in a local firm. “two weeks vacation and health insurance aren’t going to cut it anymore.”
what cuts it? we turned up a few unexpected possibilities: better working conditions, shorter commutes, tuition for the kids, more time with the family, and longer vacations.
employers had better listen hard, because we also know how benefits factor into job-changing plans. fully three in four cpas could change jobs for the right benefits package.
that’s actually good if your company needs new staff and offers the right bait. but if your company can’t compete with the bennies, it may soon be saving a lot on salaries as staff emigrate in search of a better deal.
[the full study is available from bay street group llc. for more information, call rick telberg at (914) 674-4531.]
one response to “benefits: the new weapon in the battle for staff”
"senior tax manager in a big four firm"
let me add to the list of what needs to be fixed “bad software decisions.”
i am sorry that you can’t use my name, but just say that i am a senior tax manager in a big four firm that has chosen to adopt proprietary tax prep software rather than using the usual 3rd party vendor applications. everyone here loathes our self-developed stuff because it is slow as molasses and has a ton of bugs. it is not unusual for return prep to take twice the time with “our” software as it does with cch or ria. senior management still cannot figure out that time is money & ditch this whole endeavor.
similarly, management has implemented a new self-developed time & billing system which is, to say the least, not at all user-friendly. not that the old system didn’t have its flaws, but the new system has new flaws that were not present in the old program. working on a program that is clearly written by sap geeks who never should have been allowed out of the back room to design a user interface, we again take twice as long to enter our time as we did on the old system. again, time is money — why can’t our senior management get it that every minute we spend on this data entry is another minute we can’t make money for the firm?