by
Arianna Campbell
| May 03, 2022
The Great Resignation has been a hot topic of discussion in firms
around the country. People are leaving their current jobs — not
just for other firms, but for other careers.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a short-term problem. Many of the talent
issues we’ve been dealing with for years will continue, and new
ones will come up as people decide to work differently. So it’s
more important than ever to focus on increasing our ability to
get work done with limited resources.
Right now, your firm is likely feeling those limits acutely. Talent
is more limited than it has been in the past, and the problem
will likely worsen before it gets better. Enrollment in accounting
programs1 is down, many accounting majors aren’t pursuing
CPA2 licenses, and employees across the board are burnt out3.
For these reasons, it’s more important than ever to look for ways
to serve our talent better and help them complete tasks and
achieve their goals without piling on more stress. Here are five
ways to do just that.
Automation
Spending hours every day
or week on manual, repetitive
tasks is demotivating for talented
professionals. These tasks should be
handled by technology.
When you leverage technology to automate these
processes, tasks that used to take up the bulk of your
days can be handled in minutes. You can ignore the
possibilities and watch your competitors steal clients,
hire away your talent and surpass you. Or you can
embrace these tools, viewing them as an essential
partner that eliminates some of the day-to-day
monotony and frees up people to work where their
unique human abilities are needed.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing — whether via traditional offshoring of tax preparation
or hiring freelancers — allows your people to work at their best
and highest use. And it’s not just for large firms with big budgets.
Supporting your team with outsourced services makes sense
for firms of all sizes.
The key to being successful with outsourcing is to commit.
Deciding you’re going to outsource a handful of returns or a
small amount of marketing or IT tasks and projects typically isn’t
worth the time and effort. But when you commit to outsourcing
hundreds of tax returns or all content marketing efforts for
your firm, you’ll see real results. Those results will give you the
confidence to continue.
Process improvement
Both automation and outsourcing depend on having standardized
and efficient processes. It’s tough to automate or outsource a
task when there are 18 different ways to do it, and
bottlenecks can drag down even the top performers.
When you improve your firm’s processes — for
traditional engagements like tax and audit as
well as billing, client and employee onboarding
and advisory work — your people will have
more capacity to take on higher-level work.
Delegation
Delegating work is another way to help people
perform at their highest and best level, but
it doesn’t come naturally to everyone. You
need to train your people to give responsibility
and authority.
Delegation should also help the person
you’re delegating to grow. We call this “win-win
delegation,” and it follows an eight-step process:
- Stop doing the work yourself
- Select the project you want to delegate and the
person you want to delegate to
- Sell it and gain buy-in
- Show them how to do it
- Watch and coach them as they do it
- Let it go
- Follow up and provide feedback
- Reward and celebrate
Client filtering
One major source of employee burnout is working with clients
who aren’t aligned with the firm’s growth goals. For example, if
you’re telling your team you want to grow the firm and become
more advisory, but you’re continuing to work on small individual
tax returns with no related business, people feel as if they aren’t
helping the firm achieve its strategic plan.
Determine your ideal client and the criteria your firm will use for
client filtering. Then start saying no to new clients and referring
existing clients elsewhere if they don’t fit the mold. This will
involve some tough decisions, but the result will be happier
employees and a more profitable firm.4
We often think of our capacity to get work
done — both individually and as a firm — as
fixed. We tell ourselves there are only so
many hours in the day. While that’s true,
time isn’t the only capacity limiting our
ability to accomplish our goals. In the
past, you may have avoided automation,
outsourcing, process improvement,
delegation and client filtering because
you had enough internal team members
to handle the workload. But the realities
of hiring and retention are putting more
pressure on people to try strategies they
should have already been doing.
To maintain a competitive
advantage, you have to
figure this stuff out. So don’t
just choose one or two of
these strategies. Build a
strategy that includes all
five, and you’ll be able to take
your firm to a much higher level.
As Shareholder and Consultant for Boomer Consulting,
Inc., Arianna Campbell helps accounting firms challenge
the status quo by leading process improvement
initiatives that result in increased profitability and client
satisfaction. She also facilitates the development and
cultivation of future firm leaders in The P3 Leadership
Academy™ Academy. You can contact Arianna at arianna.campbell@boomer.com.
This article appears in the spring 2022 issue of the Washington CPA magazine. Read more here.
- https://us.aicpa.org/content/dam/aicpa/interestareas/accountingeducation/ newsandpublications/downloadabledocuments/2019-trends-report.pdf
- https://www.icpas.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/ information/professional-issues/2021-cpa-pipeline-report-decoding-the-decline. pdf
- https://www.indeed.com/lead/preventing-employee-burnout-report
- Check out our Guide to Client Filtering at https://www.boomer.com/guide-client- filtering if you need help in this area.