Tolstoy’s comment that all happy families are alike might just as well apply to accounting firms: The Best Firms share a long list of attributes, policies and best practices that have become table stakes for recruiting and retaining top talent.
These common practices extend to compensation, culture, communication, career development and beyond (and will be covered in later installments of 20 Days to a Better Firm), but they also include a list of perks and extras.
Among the most prominent of these are:
- Dress for your day. Business casual used to be a new and unusual thing that the Best Firms embraced first; now it’s common, and the coming trend is to allow employees to judge for themselves what they need to wear, depending on what work they’ll be doing and who they’ll be interacting with.
- Giving staff more time. The Best Firms are all fairly generous with time off, but particularly during the summer, many offer flexible work schedules, like that of Florida’s Ennis Pellum, which lets staff condense their work week in order to take Fridays off. Not many firms have followed Texas-based ATKG’s policy of unlimited PTO starting on day one, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see more firms adopting it going forward.
- Closing the office at slow times. More and more of the Best Firms are shutting down on days – or weeks – when there’s less need to be available for clients. Many close on Friday afternoons or every other Friday in the summer, while Atlanta’s Bennett Thrasher closes for the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and Missouri’s Wilson Toellner is closed for the first week of June and for the week of Thanksgiving, with staff getting paid for those weeks. The big difference between closing the office and giving employees extra time off is that staff often feel obliged to make an appearance if the office is open.
- Food – and lots of it. Free breakfasts, lunches and dinners are common in the run-up to April 15, and a variety of snacks should be on hand for the rest of the year. The biggest trend over the past few years has been to add healthy options – fruits, nuts, veggies and so on – to the snacking array.
- Including family in firm events. Regular outings, holiday parties, annual picnics or barbecues, and other events are common at many firms; the Best Firms often take this to the next level by including employees’ family members.
- Support for individual community service. Accounting firms are known for giving back to the community, and the Best Firms up the ante on this by giving employees paid time off that they can take to give back, as well as resources to support the charities they’re interested in.
- A true commitment to remote work. Letting employees work from home is moving from something firms accept in case of emergencies, to something they encourage and fully support.
