From attracting top talent to optimising productivity, the way you lead and support your people directly impacts your bottom line. However, for accounting firms without a dedicated HR function, people management sometimes becomes an afterthought, eclipsed by client deadlines and compliance demands.
“Finding ways to help people to have a career within your firm, rather than just a job, is a key challenge,” says Karen Gately, Founder of HR consultancy Corporate Dojo.
“A lot of accounting firms I work with don’t yet have a structure around which they can make sure they’re consistently setting goals, appraising performance, giving feedback and investing in people’s professional development.”
With the right mindset and tactics from the HR playbook, finance leaders can strengthen their firm’s approach to people and performance.
Below, Gately offers four HR-approved strategies to lay the groundwork for a more engaged and productive workforce.
1. Winning the war for talent
With skills shortages continuing to impact the finance sector, a key challenge for accounting firms without a dedicated HR function is engaging the right talent – particularly among younger cohorts.
With Generation Z (born between roughly 1997 and 2012) growing in the workforce, an effective attraction and recruitment strategy today looks very different to how it looked ten years ago.
“The younger generations are more likely to be interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them,” says Gately. “They’re far more likely to be very discerning around the type of environment they want to be in, and part of what they want is to have a voice and to be able to influence the organisation’s thinking and decision-making.”
Generation Z in particular is noted for their social and environmental consciousness when looking for work. In fact, a recent study found that half of Gen Z employees have rejected an assignment or project based on their personal ethics or beliefs, and 44% have turned down an employer for the same reason.
“They’re not necessarily expecting every firm to proactively demonstrate social responsibility, but they want to know that you’re ethical and that you are fundamentally striving to do the right thing as a business,” says Gately.
It’s important not to over-promise on your business’s commitment to socially responsible practices, since this can erode trust when promises don’t align with reality, she adds. For a smaller business with limited resources to become advocates or champions of a social cause, the best way to nurture your reputation as an ethical business is ensuring that candidates and employees are treated fairly and respectfully throughout every stage of the employment lifecycle.
Flexible and remote work options are also a key priority for younger workers, says Gately – and this is an area where smaller firms might have a competitive edge.
“There is a war around remote working right now,” she says. “And a lot of the bigger businesses, who might have more of a traditional, old-fashioned mindset around remote working, are starting to demand a return to the office. For younger workers, that’s a big issue. So I think there is a really big opportunity for smaller firms to [champion] flexible work.”
2. Removing friction points for greater productivity
Optimising the employee experience is another HR priority that practice leaders can’t afford to ignore.
Particularly in complex and highly regulated sectors like accounting, ensuring a seamless and manageable employee experience is often about streamlining workflows so that employees don’t encounter too many friction points during their workdays.
According to a report by Asana, knowledge workers worldwide spend an average of 60% of their time on ‘work about work’ – in other words, troubleshooting or administrative tasks that take away from meaningful and productive work.
The findings showed that over the course of a year, the average knowledge worker spends 103 hours in unnecessary meetings, 209 hours on duplicative work, and 352 hours talking about work.
Beyond its impact on a business’s bottom line, spending too much time on tasks like these increases the risk of burnout and disengagement.
To prevent busywork holding employees back, leaders should start by assessing systems and standard operating procedures to identify and eliminate friction points for users, says Gately.
“The average [employee’s] tenure is currently about two years. But I believe you can extend that to four or five years if the person feels like they’re still extracting value in terms of their own capabilities and confidence.”
Karen Gately, Founder, Corporate Dojo
“If I don’t have the fundamental resources I need – I don’t have the right equipment, or I don’t have access to information, or I don’t have a system that actually works – that just adds to the stress and pressure,” she says.
As well as tackling issues with the operating system, leaders might also consider using AI or automation to handle certain repetitive or administrative tasks.
Another way to mitigate workplace friction is to ensure roles are both manageable and aligned to the person’s capabilities, says Gately. She offers an example of an employee in an accounting firm she recently worked with.
“The job demanded that this person be head down and focused on detail, but they were also involved in client engagement enquiries with some pretty challenging personalities. So the skillset and the character traits required to do one aspect of their job was pretty much the opposite of the skills and characteristics that you’d need to be able to do the other part of the job.”
By tackling gaps like this, leaders can create roles that are fit-for-purpose and better aligned to individual strengths.
3. Preventing burnout
The risk of burnout is a growing concern across all industries, and accounting is no exception.
According to Robert Half, 80% of Australian workers say they feel a little to very burnt out, with heavy workloads (56%) and an insufficient number of staff (36%) being the top two contributors.
There are a number of preventative strategies leaders can implement to mitigate the risk of burnout, says Gately.
“Avoiding burnout starts with having reasonable expectations around workload demand. But it’s also about coaching and encouraging people around self-care,” she says.
“Sometimes, people are their own worst enemy. [Maybe] clients are demanding things so they’re working 16-hour days, even though that’s not the expectation. If we’re close to our people, and we’re able to observe some of those habits, we can coach around that and ensure people feel safe to switch off and not do crazy hours.”
This is especially important in light of the new Right to Disconnect legislation, which was enshrined into the Fair Work Act for most businesses last year. For smaller businesses (those with fewer than 15 employees), the legislation will come into effect in August 2025.
As well as being respectful of employees’ right to switch off after work, Gately adds that it’s also incumbent on businesses to manage the expectations of external clients.
Leaders can also help by setting an example when it comes to work-life balance. One effective strategy Gately has seen leaders use is “leaving loudly”; i.e., announcing to employees that they are leaving work early due to personal or family responsibilities.
“[This demonstrates that] it’s okay to want to [spend time] with family, and it’s okay to ask for some flexibility, because you have things you need to achieve that are really important to you,” she says.
4. Building a learning culture
Placing a strong emphasis on learning and development in your business is not only critical to capacity building and succession planning – it’s also one of leaders’ most important retention strategies, says Gately.
“The average [employee’s] tenure is currently about two years. But I believe you can extend that to four or five years if the person feels like they’re still extracting value in terms of their own capabilities and confidence, and what’s on their CV.”
While it can be harder for smaller firms to offer regular promotions, finance leaders can still embed a learning culture into their business by getting creative with development opportunities.
“We don’t need people to step up hierarchical rungs in the ladder to feel a sense of progression. We can still influence someone to feel like they are moving forward because they’re a more capable version of themselves than they were six months ago.”
This doesn’t need to mean expensive training programs, she adds – it can be as simple as bringing junior employees in on projects they might not otherwise be exposed to, or assigning them a more experienced mentor who can offer advice on professional development.
“In an accounting firm I’m working with currently, when there’s a client meeting, the partners are deliberately thinking about who else could or should be in the room for their development purposes. So they’re bringing the junior accountant into that meeting and then just spending 15 minutes after the meeting debriefing and coaching them about what’s just happened.”
Leaders should also engage with employees regularly to check in on their individual development goals and establish ways that the business can help them achieve these goals, she adds.
“If we have a really clear development plan for each person, then we can see those [teaching] moments and seize them, whether it’s through experiences, projects or mentoring.”
The IPA’s CPD online webinar, Workforce Solutions in a Tight Market, covers global talent recruitment and managing compliance. More information here.
