Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Help Needed Before Help Wanted

In January, there are certain things I can count on: my car will have trouble starting on a regular basis, my holiday credit card statements will nearly equal the national debt, and until the end of April, regular company clients will greet my phone calls with all the warmth of a root canal sans Novocain.
And it will also mark the arrival of Robert Half’s annual guide to compensation in the accounting and financial fields. This is the time when those at various director/manager levels in the tax and audit fields discover whether they’re under or overpaid and either work harder, begin to network elsewhere for employment, or storm into their superior’s office and threaten cranial surgery with a paper weight.
According to Robert Half, this year, salaries in the accounting profession are projected to grow at about 3.3%, with - not surprisingly - the largest increases occurring at the manager and senior-level posts.
And despite the current national unemployment level of 7.8%, the level of senior accountants and auditors not currently drawing paychecks is a relatively modest 4.1%.
According to an official with Robert Half, one of the most desired backgrounds are those CPAs with a three- to six-year background in public accounting.
Which sort of brings me to the topic de jour.
I spent several days last week in Las Vegas attending Winning is Everything, one of the annual high-profile practice management conferences in the profession. And - not coincidentally - no less than seven sessions during that meeting focused on 21st century leadership and winning the battles for talent.
Many of you in the Boomer generation or those before remember the protocol to making partner – 2,800 or more hours a year, exhausting 12-14 hour days, and more weekends than you care to remember while wedged in a cubicle or small office. All the while you hoped someone in direct authority noticed your commitment.
But that was then and this is now.
Here’s the hard truth – no one, least of all young CPAs just or recently out of college, will work 2,800 a year anymore to hop on the partner track. Matter of fact, few if any, will even approach the 2,000-hour barrier.
There are just too many options for them in today’s financial or technology marketplace as opposed to go to work in for a firm that strives to recreate an episode of Father Knows Best. To win the talent wars, you have to have the right weapons, and if a potential young hire sees legions of button-down Oxfords, polished wing tips, and rows of file cabinets more reminiscent of an Iowa cornfield than progressive paperless technology, they will simply say “thanks anyway.”
Throughout the year, there are an abundance of conferences, seminars, and webinars dedicated to making your firm ready to compete effectively in the 21st century and beyond and attraction and retention of top talent is no small part of that equation. If your hiring hall is open, I would take full advantage of any or all of those opportunities to learn what drives and motivates the CPAs of the future.
Because a firm that retains 20th century thinking and stubbornly adheres to the shopworn mantra of “we’ve always done it this way” will only create 21st century real estate opportunities for firms that don’t.

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