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by rick telberg
on careers
if there’s anything a finance or accounting office needs more than clients, it’s professionals to handle the work. but just as we need them most, they’re hardest to find. recruitment and retention are perhaps the profession’s biggest challenge these days.
hiring help is no longer a simple matter of offering higher pay and better bennies than the firm down the street. today’s accounting professionals are looking for more. in search of whatever it is that professionals are searching for, we went looking for firms that seem to have little or no recruitment problems. we didn’t find many — just 22 out of more than 400 we checked — but we paid close attention to what those 22 had to say.
not coincidentally, most of the firms are operating on the leading edge of growth, productivity and profitability. apparently they’re doing something right and both their employees and job applicants agree.
our studies have identified 10 factors that employees and candidates look at when evaluating a job: workload, compensation, recognition, challenging work, work/life balance, internal communication, informed of company goals, high expectations, best technology and relevance to customers.
among the companies and firms with little or no hiring problems, here’s what they’re doing right, ranked by order of importance:
1. provide proper work/life balance
2. offer fair compensation
3. set a sensible workload
4. offer challenging work
5. recognize a job well done
6. set high expectations
7. invest in the best technology
8. maintain relevance to customers
9. establish good internal communications
10. keep staff informed of company goals
significantly, the firms and companies that report suffering staffing problems seem not place much emphasis on providing challenging opportunities for workers, deploying up-to-date technologies, and communicating a clear sense of purpose about their organization and clients.
cpas are looking for a combination of factors, and apparently they’re measuring them against a desire to live life outside the office. a reasonable workload is about as important as a challenging job. it seems that accounting professionals are willing to apply themselves when they’re on the job, but they don’t want to lug the job home in a big, fat briefcase even it holds a big, fat paycheck, too.
some is enough, in other words. but too much is too much.
what else do finance and accounting professionals want in a job? “flex-time, better than average benefits, reasonable busy season hours, partner open-door policy, family atmosphere, lack of office politics, very selective in our hiring practices,” according to one senior partner. “the way you treat your employees goes a long way in retaining staff.”
it almost sounds like everybody at that office is at home at work. the same may be true at jacoby development, a small company in atlanta, where joan greer suggests something that everyone wants: “respect for each person and recognition of their contribution to the organization,” greer prescribed. “each person contributes in some way to the overall success of the company.”
between the statistical results and the open-ended comments, we can glean a little something of value.
no one factor is going to sway job candidates or itchy employees one way or the other. cpas aren’t stupid. they’re looking at a combination of factors, and the firm that cooks up the right combo is going to survive the recruitment crunch. it’s worth some thought.
[first published by the aicpa]
