If there is one subject on which the heads of accounting firms all agree, it is the difficulty of recruiting and retaining their staff. Under these conditions, the issue of well-being at work, which has not always been a primary concern for chartered accountants, becomes paramount. There are many levers on this front, but improving the organization of work plays a pivotal role.
Levers for improving well-being at work
The HR dimension is now a major issue more than ever before. The latest edition of the Rosenberg survey of US accounting firms shows that the labour shortage continues to have a major impact. It reaches the stark conclusion that: "Firms need to strike a balance between making good use of staff and creating a positive work environment - and reducing burnout – if they are to retain top talent."
“Accounting firm turnover has been high for a number of years, with upwards of 20% of accounting talent lost per year for most firms, but the Great Resignation feels different and worse,” said Jeff Phillips, co-founder of recruitment platform Accountingfly. Turnover is nonetheless expensive, disruptive to the firm and a drain on staff morale. What can be done about it?
Working conditions
Working conditions are increasingly highlighted by candidates: pleasant premises, quality of management, recognition, flexible working hours, teleworking, socializing, etc. It is not enough to put a table football table in the office and to hold a breakfast from time to time to "be cool"! It is necessary to create a working atmosphere in which employees feel truly comfortable.
Production tools used in the firm
Employees, and by no means only the youngest ones, are more and more sensitive to the computer hardware used in the firm, particularly with regard to the automation of repetitive or tedious production tasks. Feedback from the field shows that many candidates ask firms about their equipment. This is very common in the field of payroll, but it is also beginning to be seen in the field of accounting.
Diversity of assignments and prospects for development
A traditional accounting firm, which in the vast majority of cases is a VSE/SME, will not be able to compete with a big firm in terms of career prospects. However, the assignments of the firms are increasingly diversified, and this openness constitutes a lever of motivation and loyalty for the employees.
Remuneration
Remuneration remains an important element of appeal and retention. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar! If firms want to attract and/or retain progressive and motivated profiles, they will inevitably have to review their pay scales. In this respect, it should be noted that employees are also very sensitive to indirect remuneration elements.
"The days of "not counting the hours" are behind us. The workload, the comfort of the job, the flexibility of the working hours, the part given to teleworking, are now at the heart of the employees' concerns. The firms that call on us are often concerned about keeping their promises, such as respecting the agreed timetable, but because of the lack of efficient organization, they are obliged to call on them beyond their commitments. They are aware this is not satisfactory, but they didn't have a real solution until they discovered Beeye.”
Planning in the service of well-being at work
The organization of the firm's processes is a major tool for improving the working conditions of employees and therefore a condition for their loyalty.
We have elaborated extensively on the impact of a better planning on the performance of the firms1 in a previous article, but it is important to underscore that it is also a way to bolster peace of mind for and improve the well-being of the teams.
Make the tax season run more smoothly
Effective planning helps to reduce periods of overload in firms, by streamlining the activity of team members over time. It also reduces bottlenecks that add stress to an already tense period.
Using a planning tool that makes it easy to visualize everyone's workload makes it possible in turn to anticipate and regulate, and ultimately suffer less. Such a solution can identify which team members will be overloaded and when, so that the necessary measures can be taken to prevent this from happening, namely to:
- Reassign projects to other staff whose schedules are less crowded at that time,
- Delegate certain tasks,
- Spread out certain actions to distribute the work better over time,
- Subcontract certain projects or parts thereof,
- Recruit,
- Etc.
Beeye accordingly assigns the constituent tasks of an assignment according to the skills of the various participants. Employees who are systematically overloaded during the tax period can thus entrust part of their tasks to others who are more available. The firm runs more smoothly, and everyone has greater peace of mind.
Managing the unexpected
Careful planning makes it possible to manage better unforeseen events that punctuate the life of a firm: the absence or departure of an employee, the signing of an exceptional mission, the arrival of a new client, etc. Such unforeseen events are often synonymous with overtime, particularly during the tax season.
Fine-tuned planning makes it possible to assign not entire projects, but the blocks of their constituent tasks. Thanks to this block-task approach, a project can be distributed among several employees and as closely as possible to their skills to boot.
"Managing the unexpected is a headache for firm managers and a source of stress for employees. Beeye offers transparency and flexibility in planning to assign tasks and files, manage unexpected events, new missions, absences and departures. From a description of the tasks and skills available, thanks to customizable templates, Beeye proposes the best work scenario... and can recalibrate it at any time. The information can be shared with the whole team, thereby avoiding any feeling of injustice.”
Assigning the right tasks to employees
We broached the allocation of scarce resources and the principle of subsidiarity as a source of efficiency for firms in a previous article, 2 so we will not go into here again.
But beyond the gain in efficiency, real-time planning also has a calming effect on staff. It reassures them that everything is being done to make certain that the tasks they are assigned are compatible with their skills and workload.
"It is not ease to segment assignments into blocks of tasks, by level of difficulty, and by employee according to his or her skills, their available time and the deadlines of the project without an adapted tool. With Beeye, the nature of the assignment and the profile of each person are filled in beforehand. We propose typical profiles of staff and assignments to help firms complete the information. As a result, the work is distributed more equitably and more efficiently.”
Empowerment through greater autonomy
Finally, the use of a planning tool makes it possible to meet high expectations, particularly among the new generations: greater autonomy in their work and the possibility of retaining a certain leeway how their working time is organized (arbitration between periods of sustained activity and quieter periods, working time range, teleworking vs on-site.)
Once the deadlines have been set for each assignment, employees, who have an overall view of their schedule, can distribute their efforts better over time and gain greater flexibility in their personal organization. The tool gives them the deadline and the timeframe for the completion of a task. They are free to carry out the task at the time that seems most appropriate to them.
When do we start?
Optimizing planning is a powerful way to give teams more peace of mind and thus improve their well-being at work:
- Saving time on planning and managing time spent,
- Better management of unforeseen events,
- Smoother tax season,
- Greater autonomy,
- Better allocation of tasks.
For all these reasons, the use of an ad hoc software has its place in the attractiveness and loyalty policy of firms. To find out more about the tool's features, please go to: https://www.mybeeye.com/en.
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