labor shortage pushes cpas to look for innovative ideas.
what are you doing about it? join the study. get the answers.
by rick telberg
for the finance executive
recruiting good workers and properly managing staff — two of the most pressing issues facing the accounting profession — will take new levels of creative thinking to resolve.
our conversations with cpas in public practice, business and industry and the government and not-for-profit sectors, find that staffing and staff-related issues are the problems that they would most like to resolve with the snap of a finger.
without a stable employee base, “the learning curve goes on forever,†and people never settle in their jobs long enough to deliver new solutions and creativity to organizations, laments a senior executive in business and industry. one head of a small public practice says she would most like to “cut down on administrative time,†in order to free staff to perform higher level functions. they were responding to the dec. 18 column, “2006’s big lesson: get creative.â€
“hire the best and compensate above average so we spend less time on details and more time on big-picture ideas,†is the snap-of-the-finger solution that the head of one public practice cpa and technology services firm offered.
jared blauer, accounting services manager with ogden, utah-based flying j, a nationwide oil company and operator of truck service facilities, says he would most like to find ways of “providing good medical insurance benefits to all employees at a reasonable cost.â€
another manager in business and industry says he would most like to change his company’s refusal to promote from within. “it seems that our company always looks outside the walls for new talent, leaving inside talent frustrated and looking for another job,†he says.
from the government sector, james kane of the inspector general’s office at the california department of health services in oakland, calif., says the issue he would most like to instantly resolve is how to get middle managers to accept new and innovative procedures for auditing. he notes that middle managers often get locked into a “comfort level†about using established procedures, which get exacerbated by governments’ “generally status quo†attitude about audits.
for dan clayton, a cpa in the tucson, ariz., office of cha healthcare auditors, the biggest problem “is breaking the old foundation of finance as the basis for internal audit, and replacing it with objective-based operational audit.†as clayton noted in our “trend lines†report on dec. 18, 2006, the sarbanes-oxley accounting reform law, as demanding as it is, is still built on “an old financial statement-based foundation†when internal and external audit requirements are “well beyond that limited foundation.â€
while sox remains problematic throughout the profession, personnel issues are far more problematic and critical. in our study, some seven in 10 cpas identified retaining good people as the issue most in need of new creative thinking, while keeping up with technology — long the biggest thorn in our side — was cited by only about half.
tom hood, president of the maryland association of cpas, notes the sometimes overlooked importance of treating staff and with dignity. “i plan to seize the opportunity to make our workplace a place where we value each other and every one of our team members and hope they play it forward,†he says.
however, that approach takes a great deal of communications and, as a senior executive with a nonprofit organization told us, “the harder we try to be better communicators, the worse it seems to get.â€
but that shouldn’t keep you from trying something different. nothing’s more important.
now it’s your turn: what’s your office doing to foster innovation? join the survey and see the results.
[first published by the aicpa]