Top Firms 2022: Weapons in the war for talent

March 10, 2022 9:00 AM

It’s proving harder and harder for accounting firms to recruit and retain the people they need to perform the ever-increasing amount of work coming through their doors, so it’s no surprise to learn from this year’s Top 100 Firms and Regional Leaders (see this year’s report) that they have been sharpening their strategies and honing their tactics.

Given that the war for talent has been going on for a decade or more, most of the strategies and tactics aren’t new, but the country’s top firms are definitely refreshing their approaches and taking them more seriously than ever before as they grapple with the changes to the candidate pool — and to both candidates’ and current employees’ expectations — wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Below are a dozen of the most commonly cited tactics and strategies; while we’ve cited individual firms that are employing these, it’s worth noting that none of the firms quoted are relying on any one single approach — all of them rely on large arsenals.

Bringing in experts

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A key element for many of the T100 and Regional Leaders has been to bring in professional recruiters. At Philadelphia-based Your Part-Time Controller, for instance, “We’ve expanded our talent acquisition team to meet the additional hiring requirements and constantly reevaluate our processes and make modifications where needed,” reported chief operating officer Heidi Pelczar.

In many cases, firms are hiring professionals with specific talent pools in mind. Oregon’s Geffen Mesher, for instance, “hired a full-time recruiter focused on lateral hires,” according to CEO Michael Rompa, while at Dallas-based Lane Gorman Trubitt managing member Lee Ann Collins said, “We have added a second recruiter to our HR team that will focus explicitly on college recruiting and those early in their careers.”

A bigger funnel

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In addition to bringing in experts to boost recruiting, many of the top firms are broadening their sources of job candidates, whether by expanding their geographic reach, or forming new relationships. Upstate New York’s Freed Maxick, for instance, is “increasing the number of colleges where we visit and post,” said managing director Henry Koziol, while Perkins & Co. president Jared Holum in Oregon noted that “hiring from across the U.S. has increased our candidate pool dramatically.”

More money

Accounting firms are more or less competing with every other sector for talent, including both technology and finance, which means they can’t afford to skimp on pay, and the overwhelming majority of the Top 100 Firms and Regional Leaders reported some kind of adjustment to staff salaries and compensation. For instance, as chair and CEO Paul Knopp explained, Big Four firm KPMG “announced a $160 million additional investment in our people with across-the-board salary adjustments for all KPMG professionals.”

Some firms reported making more than one change to compensation during the course of 2021, and others noted that they had conducted off-schedule compensation reviews to make sure they were keeping top talent engaged. At Boston-based Wolf & Co., “We hired a compensation consultant to assist in evaluating and updating our compensation model,” said president and CEO Mark O’Connell.

Better benefits

After pay, another form of compensation that many of the top firms looked to improve was employee benefits. Besides the salary bump that KPMG’s Knopp mentioned above, he said, “We recently introduced enhancements to our package focused on mental, physical, social and financial well-being.”

One common approach was to reduce (or keep flat) the amount staff pay for medical and dental benefits; a large number of firms also expanded their parental leave offerings. Among the many other benefits that the top firms added or expanded were mobile phone reimbursement, education and tuition reimbursement, fitness rewards, expanded (and sometimes unlimited) PTO, pet insurance and CPA exam support.

Doing well by being well

One particular category of benefits that stood out among the top firms revolves around staff members’ wellbeing, with a particular emphasis on their mental health, which has become a priority over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have expanded our mental health and wellbeing benefits in both depth and breadth, by broadening our life-work solutions specifically aimed at working parents while also adding to our wellbeing benefits for all team members, including the addition of a wellbeing app that provides resources at their fingertips for mental and physical health, resilience and mindset, financial health as well as a points-based overall wellness program,” said Matt Snow, CEO of North Carolina-based Dixon Hughes Goodman (which is due to merge with BKD in the next few months).

And at Houston’s McConnell & Jones, among many other recruitment and retention initiatives, “Our Mindfulness educational series has taught approximately one-third of the firm the skills of mindfulness and meditation,” said founder and managing partner Wayne McConnell. “In addition, the firm conducted a study of Deepak Chopra’s Soul of Leadership. These group discussions, along with our coaching and mentoring program, fosters the kind of environment that professionals at all stages of their career appreciate.”

Bonuses

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Besides boosting salaries, the top firms have found plenty of other ways to put money in their employees’ pockets, in the form of multiple types of bonuses. New Hampshire-based Melanson offers a good sample: “We’ve expanded our staff bonus programs across all staff levels,” reported CFO Chris Hill. “We’ve increased our new employee referral bonus to pay more when the new hire stays with the firm longer, we’ve increased our CPA licensure bonus, and we added a bonus firm holiday last year.”

Going hybrid

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After salary increases, by far the most commonly mentioned approach to boosting retention was increasing workplace flexibility and, in particular, offering a hybrid work environment, where staff who have gotten used to working from home during the pandemic can choose when and if they come back into the office.

“We understand that success is achieved in part by creating a flexible work environment for our staff,” said Peter Bohan, director of firm administration at Massachusetts-based O’Connor & Drew. “Sometimes that means working on site at a client, sometimes collaborating side by side with other staff in the office, and sometimes that is working remotely. We let staff determine their recipe for success on any given day.”

The top firms are, however, concerned about making sure that partially and fully remote employees remain engaged. “As our remote employee base begins to grow, we knew it was essential for them to experience firm culture, in an environment that was distinctly unique to them,” explained Andrea Battaglia, conveyor of communication at Missouri-based Abacus CPAs. “We created a Remote Employees Group that meets regularly with our director of HR, giving them a chance to connect with each other, discuss ideas and innovations that could help improve their experience, and to grow as a group.”

Better and faster

With candidates not staying on the market long, efficiency in recruiting and hiring is a focus for many firms. “From the recruiting side, we have streamlined our process to make offers at a much faster pace and have started promoting faster,” said Donna Erbs, partner for strategic growth at Anders CPAs in St. Louis, while Jenny Brumfield, project growth coordinator at Savile Dodgen & Co. in Dallas, reported, “We are automating our application and hiring process to make sure we are not losing out on any great candidates through all the steps of the process.”

San Francisco-based BPM is so dedicated to getting better in this area that they “build and utilize candidate experience interview surveys to gauge what we are doing well, and areas of opportunities,” said CEO Jim Wallace.

It’s not just the hiring process that firms are improving, either. “Our employee onboarding program was overhauled to welcome new hires and make their initial time at the firm an amazing and comprehensive experience,” said Stephen White, director of operations and growth at Maryland’s E. Cohen & Co. “Components of this program include breakfast meet-and-greets, team lunches, swag bags, and comprehensive training — these onboarding components are all designed to inculcate the E. Cohen way and get new employees up and running quickly.”

Listen up

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It has long been clear that the way the current generation of firm leaders was managed will not work for the current generations of new employees, and top firms need to pay attention to what staff want and expect from their workplaces. A key element of that is giving staff a voice through regular two-way communication, particularly in the form of surveys.

“We conducted team surveys and held focus groups throughout 2021 to gauge employee sentiment and satisfaction, explained Pennsylvania-based RKL’s CEO, Ed Monborne. “We’re currently translating that feedback into an action plan to optimize the RKL experience for our talented team members.”

Besides surveys, another common tactic the T100 and Regional Leaders use to find out what employees want is to ask them, face to face. “We have conducted stay interviews to hear from our staff what matters most to them,” said Dottie Leonardi, chief business officer of Philadelphia-based Drucker & Scaccetti.

Career development

Different career paths to advancement concept

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Long a staple of recruiting and retention techniques for the profession, helping staff grow professionally has taken on even more importance these days.

“We have always and will continue to invest heavily in professional career development for the entire firm,” said Jason Ferguson, managing partner of Houston’s Calvetti Ferguson. “Every person in our firm, from partners to staff, to firm operations, contributes to the firm’s growth and success; therefore, we offer courses to everyone to further their leadership development, soft skills and technical proficiency.”

And at Abacus CPAs, the firm is doubling down on its development efforts. “Our firm has shifted from external trainers to an internal department managing all employee education,” explained Battaglia. “Why? Because our internal team can relate it back to our culture, core competencies and speak directly to employee growth opportunities or the firm vibe. It’s been a dynamic change that’s taken our firm educational development to the next level.”

The firm is also building a “career lattice” so staff can see their career paths; creating and sharing a clear “path to partner”; piloting an internally developed leadership series; and coordinating a monthly learning track series.

Nontraditional talent

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Part of the talent issue faced by firms has to do with the relative scarcity of CPAs and other traditional talent sources — which has led many of the Top 100 Firms and Regional Leaders to look beyond the usual suspects to consider people they might not have in the past. Chicago-based ORBA, for instance, has “increased hiring of out-of-state employees; is hiring more part-time and flexible work arrangement employees; is looking to hire and utilize attorneys with experience in specific skill areas as consultants; and is considering creating a new role for full-time non-CPAs to do some of the lower-level audit and tax work,” according to managing director Mark Thompson.

Another untapped pool is folks who used to work for the firm. Chad Anschuetz, managing shareholder and chairman of Michigan-based Doeren Mayhew, reported that the firm has recruited among former employees: “We’ve had four returning client service professionals recently who left the firm, but found they missed our firm’s culture and professional development opportunities.”

Diversifying

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Developing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts is a serious focus for a number of top firms, both because it opens up new potential pools of talent, and because it serves as a strong indicator to younger generations that the firm shares their concerns.

“Having a diverse workforce is critically important,” said Tom Watson, CEO at St. Louis-based BKD. “The addition of a diversity recruiting advisor to our team boosts our strategies for recruiting more diverse talent as we increase our presence at historically diverse universities and professional organizations.”

Louis Grassi explained the sorts of things his New York-based eponymous firm is doing: “Grassi established a formal DEI committee to expand the DEI initiatives at our firm and promote unity and acceptance,” he said. “Led by employee volunteers, the committee is representative of our diverse workforce and enables their voices to be part of the conversation on our DEI initiatives, policies and commemorations. Since its formation, this committee has coordinated events focused on annual awareness campaigns, such as Black History Month, International Women’s Day and Pride Month, and provided valuable insights into evolving social and racial issues.”