In the years since I began practicing, our profession has changed radically.  I do not want to sound like my parents and grandparents who lamented the passing of the nickel candy bar, 1 cent stamps, and walking to and from school ( up hill, both ways in the snow of Southern California), but are we progressing or regressing in terms of advancing the profession of public accounting and making it an attractive career?  What are the underlying currents that influence or even drive change? Read more…

Last week we were informed we had been selected by Accounting Today as one of the top accounting firms  to work for in the United States.  I understand there will be an article published in January, 2009.  How did we go from being a firm that had the universal difficulty of other accounting firms – attracting and retaining top talent – to being named to such a prestigious club in four years?: We changed our business philosophy, and consequently our overall approach to providing service, after following the traditional accepted approach for 25 years. Read more…

In a recent post on Trendlines, Gary Boomer held forth on the staffing crisis in our profession.  Succinct and to the point, Boomer lists four reasons.  While all four are valid, my experience over the past five years has identified one as being most significant – Firms with low retention and high staff turnover work their associates too many hours.  It’s not rocket science. Read more…

In virtually every survey of accounting firm managing partners and human resource directors they rate the difficulty in finding and retaining professional staff as their number one challenge. Yet the work environment in most professional accounting firms is the same ’sweat shop’ it was 50 years ago when there was an unlimited labor pool. Read more…

When I ‘retired’ from Arthur Young and Company a couple of years ago, (1978) it wasn’t because I didn’t love the profession, or the work. It wasn’t because the compensation was inadequate. It was the job. It was my employer. I wasn’t trusted. I was given an annual quota of time to fill, monitored by a semi-monthly report submitted on my time sheet in quarter hours. Annually, there was a summary of my hourly performance in comparison to my peers and to employees that I had never met, who had served before me. We complied with an arbitrary standard we had no input in setting. The majority of my waking hours were planned for me, without my input. Read more…

The keystone of practice management for the accounting profession and most law firms has long been the billable hour. We rely on hours accumulated on time sheets in six minute increments to drive most every aspect of our practices Read more…

This week I had the opportunity to interview a five year senior from a national firm, who is interested in altering her career path and coming to work for us. During the course of the interviews (we always do at least three) the normal questions arose regarding compensation, benefits, and continuing education, and what types of clients she would be assigned.

We typically have moved away from ‘assigning’ staff to client projects. Alternatively, once our pricing committee accepts a client, the engagement partner will select the manager or supervisor he would like – manager / supervisory senior / senior. After defining the engagement to them, he will then invite them to be a part of the engagement team. They can decline without prejudice. They in turn will invite other associates to be a member of the engagement team. Why would we do this?

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In an article published December 5, by smartpros.com, PricewaterhouseCoopers characterized the results of a recent survey as validating the work schedule requirements of the firm. Seventy-five percent of the respondents to the survey, (some 2793 entry level professionals offered positions by PwC), indicated they expected to work a ‘normal work week’. The survey further indicated that on average each graduate expected to have between 2 and 5 employers in their lifetime. The article and related link to the PwC survey are at http://accounting.smartpros.com/x60006.xml.

Interestingly, neither the article or the survey defined ‘normal work week’. Typically, the normal work week in the United States is considered to be 40 to 45 hours (move to France if you think 30 to 35 is more reasonable and want the government to pay for it). Read more…