Better Environment, Better Staff
Results of a survey of audit staff and partners revealed staff dissatisfaction in the work environment. Changes in that environment are necessary to induce staff to stay and thus better serve clients who expect experience and expertise from their CPAs. The watchword in American business today is "creating customer value." Public accounting firms are not immune to this trend. Clients are becoming less tolerant of excessive turnover and are demanding the expertise that comes with experience. No longer satisfied with just an auditor's signature, today they expect to receive service from professionals who understand their business and who can help it grow and prosper. Given the competitive nature of public accounting, CPA firms can no longer afford to train staff accountants for two years and then see them leave. Firms are transforming themselves to meet increasing client expectations. These changes have profound implications for the recruitment, development and retention of professional staff. Firms are hiring fewer entry-level accountants and devoting more resources than in the past to their development. Because firms are investing more in each individual, the ability to retain staff is an increasingly important human resource issue. Those firms that are better able to retain their high performers will be the ones to succeed in an ever more competitive professional services market. CHANGING THE WORK ENVIRONMENT The public accounting profession historically has operated by hiring large numbers of staff accountants and expecting only a very few to progress to executive positions. In such a scenario, the quality of the work environment was not a paramount issue; today that environment may persuade outstanding staff members to pursue other career options. In identifying the steps CPA firms could take to retain staff, we made a list of 33 changes in the work environment that might motivate staff accountants to view the profession as a long-term career option. We looked at these changes through the eyes of staff and partners and explored how desirable and how feasible they appeared to each group. The list, which included financial and nonfinancial factors as well as short- and long-term concerns, was developed in part from recommendations of the accounting education change commission in its Issues Statement on Improving the Early Employment Experience of Accountants. The commission, which works to make accounting education more relevant to the needs of the profession, was established several years ago by the then eight largest national accounting firms and is administered by the American Accounting Association. (See "Reforming Accounting Education," by Doyle Z. Williams, JofA, Aug.93, page 76, for a full discussion of the commission's activities. We sent the survey to a random sample of 750 staff accountants and 500 partners from five of the six largest firms, who were all on the audit staff. Of the staff members, 371 responded (49.5%), and 203 partners responded (40.6%). When we asked the staff accountants how long they planned to remain in public accounting, the median response was "two more years," indicating the typical staff accountant did not view audit or public accounting as a long-term career. Staff members were asked to rank the importance of each change in convincing them to stay in public accounting and how feasible they believed it would be for their firm to make that change within the next three years. Partners were asked to rank how important they believed each change would be to their staff and how feasible it would be for their firm to make the change within the next three years. Exhibit 1, page 41, lists the changes and indicates how important they appeared to staff and how feasible they appeared to partners. WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO STAFF? The changes rated most important by staff generally related to the day-to-day work environment, rather than to the financial rewards of public accounting. …