The next generation of accountants value balance, which Accounting Today's 2025 Best Firms for Young Accountants provide in myriad ways — via flexible work, personal growth support, mental wellness activities, and even sacrificing new business or the bottom line.
Before becoming partner two years ago at the No. 1 Best Firm for Young Accountants, San Francisco-based Realize CPA, Patrick Townsend witnessed the firm make exactly that kind of compromise.
"One of the things that made me want to be a partner and help solidify it for me was a couple years ago the staff and managers and folks were vocally saying — and you could see it in hours and reports — that they were working really hard," he recalled. "It was starting to creep into the more classic-looking accounting firm in terms of the requirements, the hours that people were meeting. … The partners were seeing folks working really hard and the partner group as a whole made the decision to stop taking new clients until they got enough staffing to do it at a level that we thought was fair and reasonable to everybody, and that people could still live their life outside of work. They made that decision and paused new clients incoming. So they affected their own pocketbook, but they made that decision transparently, told the firm what they were doing, and kept them updated until they got the staffing levels to a point that was fair and reasonable, and let people live their lives. That had a huge impact on me, seeing them make a decision that way, affect their own money, and be transparent about it. I'm still impressed by that decision."
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Townsend was impressed enough to not only stay aboard but to become partner of a firm where he's worked for seven years, joining a leadership team that is similarly on the younger side and plans to stay for a long duration, a trend evidenced firmwide by Realize's low turnover rate.
Realize's appreciation for life outside of work is shared by its fellow Best Firms for Young Accountants — a subset of Accounting Today's 2025 Best Firms to Work For, ranked based on high response and satisfaction scores from accountants under the age of 30 (see page 13).
No. 4 Best Firm to Work For Smith Leonard encourages its people to be more than their job, according to head of people and culture Leigh Grimes.
"Talking about work-life balance and offering reasonable hours, one of the reasons we really strive for that is that we want our employees to be well-rounded people," she explained of the High Point, N.C., firm. "We want them to explore and be able to pursue passions and hobbies and interests and be more than their job, more than just an accountant. Because I think that's what's going to make them successful in the long run … . It helps them interact better with clients and co-workers. We want people to share what they've been doing outside of work."
The line between inside and outside of work has, of course, been blurred by remote and hybrid work schedules, sparking creativity from the Best Firms. While traditional activities like holiday parties and summer picnics persist, they have been joined by spa days, meditation exercises, and even puppy parties.
East Brunswick-based WilkinGuttenplan, the No. 5 Best Firm for Young Accountants, has "a whole initiative during the month of May," reported chief people officer Allison Corio, "where we focus on mental health, overall wellness. So that's when the puppy party happens because it's a nice stress relief for the staff, too. Last year, we also did smoothies in relation to that."
Disconnection & connection
The Best Firms for Young Accountants all provide similar avenues to disconnect from work, but also many chances for human connection across their workforce.
The No. 3 Best Firm for Young Accountants — and the only small firm among the top 10, with the others being midsized — Washington, D.C.-based Han Group coordinates employee excursions.
"Once a month or so we go out and do something together just to stay connected and just for fun, like Top Golf or Korean barbecue or sometimes we'll do some sort of charitable work together," shared partner Jan McDaid.
Han Group works solely with nonprofit clients, creating benefits that are especially meaningful to younger staff, McDaid said: "[It's] something that makes us a firm for young folks too because you're working with people who, whatever it is they're doing, they're trying to make the world a better place."
These nonprofit clients also provide more team bonding outside of the office when staff can attend sponsored events or volunteer opportunities they host, McDaid added.
All these kinds of activities establish firm culture, boost employee morale, and also aim to counter burnout — though the Best Firms have already taken a preventative approach against this ailment.
"We genuinely try to keep hours reasonable during even busy season," shared Grimes. "For the younger people coming into the accounting field, we found they have the desire to do the work and work in public accounting. However, that sort of old-school mentality of working 80 to 90 hours a week is not appealing. So we've changed the way that we operate and staffed up, increasing our staff so that we can spread the work out."
Realize CPA's younger partner group helps keep these priorities in mind, according to Townsend, as they are "closer in life experience to what our staff and folks are experiencing in their own lives."
"There's this shared understanding of the reality that we can't all work nonstop all the time, and your work is incredibly important, but life doesn't stop," he continued. "There's this alignment in values between the partner group and the firm staff about who they are and what they want to be. We want to be really successful, but we want to balance that with the realities of the world and enjoyment of our families."
The value of choice
The Best Firms also recognize the different facets of true flexibility.
"It's the flexibility of choosing and having that choice, and figuring out what's the best option for me in the moment," said WilkinGuttenplan's Corio. "And the flexibility isn't just about where, it's also about when."
Smith Leonard operates with a similar mindset.
"Our flexibility with hybrid and remote work is appealing," said Grimes. "Just contributing more to that work-life balance — reasonable hours. We don't mandate people come into the office. We really leave it up to the individual to determine where and when they work best. The focus is on quality work, getting the work done, not us micromanaging things."
Han Group is also "really flexible," said McDaid, who estimates about 90% of the time employees are working remotely. "We have a once-a-month in-office day that's not even required. Highly recommended but not required."
As much as entry-level staff appreciate remote working, the Best Firms also recognize the importance of in-person connection and training as they begin their accounting careers.
"On the flip side, we are conscious of the need for connectivity and building relationships, especially for the younger generation as they're making their way into the workforce," said Corio. "So, we're super-intentional when it comes to planning for that. It's integrated into everything we do, whether it's through onboarding, training and development. And what I mean by that is we structure the onboarding to have a mix of in-person and virtual that makes sense for everyone so that it's the best possible experience."
WilkinGuttenplan gauges this experience with regular pulse surveys, Corio explained, which have found that younger people do appreciate coming into the office.
"I will say recently we've been getting a lot of feedback from our intern group and our new hires that they do like more in person," she shared.
The Best Firms for Young Accountants all agreed communication is crucial to maintaining a firm that young people want to work for, and many employ these types of surveys to evaluate where they can improve.
The younger staff can be especially vital to keep tabs on, Corio explained.
"That's what is really important, is that communication, because as a young person coming in from school, where there's much more structure, we need to support them in that because it's a big shift and it's really just about getting your work done, communicating with the staff that you're working with, and that communication goes both ways," she said.
It should also continue even if ideas can't be implemented, she stressed.
"Whenever there's an opportunity to hear our employees and make a change, we obviously want to hear it," Corio said. "And if it's possible that we can, we'll do it. If it's something we've tried in the past or something that we know might not necessarily work after doing a lot of research and things like that, we'll also go back to them and let them know, 'Hey, you know, we heard you, maybe this won't work, but how about this?' So, I think our feedback-driven culture allows us to do both at the same time."
Realize CPA also makes listening to all staff a priority, which has paid off for the firm.
"Your voice can be heard at our company — it doesn't matter what level you are," shared Townsend. "For example, I came in as a manager and I had some ideas of things maybe we could tweak a little bit differently when I first came in, and they were rolled out companywide within the first couple months that I had joined. We routinely have staff join who have some great idea, and we listen and we let them have impact so there aren't these layers of bureaucracy … I think giving folks new to their career the opportunity to have a voice and impact has been a good part of our stickiness, a big reason for it."
Kept in the loop
The Best Firms for Young Accountants have all collected feedback that identified professional training and development as important for their newer staff, and also helped shape how they offer these programs.
One seemingly universal request is for consistent career guidance, outside of the standard performance review meetings.
"We've in the past year formalized our feedback that we provide to our new associates at 30 days, 60 days, 90 days," shared Smith Leonard's Grimes. "So we're having those check-ins initially because I found that the younger employees really crave that feedback — 'Please let me know how I'm doing.' So I've formalized that using our technology that we have."
Realize CPA provides a vigorous mentorship program that Townsend has directly benefited from.
"We have this really incredible mentor program where you meet with a mentor at the firm every two weeks or so and they help give you guidance on your career outside of just the technical work," he explained. "At my old firm, we didn't have anything nearly as robust as the mentor program that we have here. And I think people take it really seriously here, where you really want to see your mentees succeed. I think the mentorship that I got through the mentor program and informally just from partners — all those little conversations, people helping steer me in the right directions — was pretty incredible."
Han Group is also "making sure that we're giving consistent feedback on a consistent basis, not once or twice a year, not just at performance reviews, but as we're working together throughout," said McDaid, explaining that the firm employs a similar cadence in its training efforts.
"We provide a lot of in-house developed training, so that we're doing it right there together, whether it's over Zoom or in the office, and we also do an extensive amount of on-the-job training, just meeting with folks and communicating with folks regularly so they know what's going on and what they need to be doing and what's new that they need to be aware of," she explained. "Just kind of keeping everybody in the loop."
The Best Firms also keep their young people apprised of what's expected of them, based on level and career goals. Smith Leonard makes this clear in its learning and development initiatives.
"For example, a tax associate has a specific learning path that we would like to see them complete all of this before we are considering them ready for promotion," Grimes explained. "It's about a 75% to 25% split between technical and professional development, a.k.a. soft-skill type stuff. There's a core curriculum and then there are electives. We spent a lot of time, we created committees so we had people from associate all the way up through partner working on this committee, and the younger accountants enjoy being included in committees, and there I have associates in a variety of committees at the firm and we involve them in recruiting."
WilkinGuttenplan also offers its younger staff insight into potential career trajectories.
"The training, the onboarding, the real development that is offered by our firm, that's a really focused approach," shared Corio. "We have an L&D focus in our HR department that works with our coaching program to make sure that each individual has a specific learning path; they understand what trainings they need. We work with the different individuals in the departments to make sure that whether it's a CPE requirement or if it's something that was feedback they received — that they should work on this area — we get them training in that specific area. We set up shadowing opportunities for them so they can see what's going on with someone they're working with, or maybe even at the partner level, so they can get some insight into what goes on if you're a partner here at the firm."
At the earlier stages, the Best Firms for Young Accountants also offer support — whether financially, with working hours, bonuses or more — for pursuing CPA licensure, and then maintaining CPE credits.
WilkinGuttenplan has a group that focuses on the softer side of training.
"Our early career professionals group, which is all of our less-experienced staff and the younger staff, we do focused types of trainings and events there," Corio explained. "Most recently, we did an elevator-pitch training. We're trying to build off of that to a business-dinner etiquette training so they can get some experience with, how do you interact at a dinner environment when you're out with clients? So it's really focusing on the different areas, skill sets, but also as you progress throughout your career, right? Early on, you might not have that experience going to dinner with a client, but let's get you prepared so that way you go into it knowing what to expect, knowing how to have those discussions because it could be scary for someone who's completely new to that, if they're not used to that environment."
"I know some of these students were primarily virtual when they went to college, if we're talking entry-level students," she continued. "So again, really just getting them comfortable so that they can be the best professional that they can be."
More targeted
While many of the Best Firms for Young Accountants have long provided a welcoming and supportive environment for all staff, the need to appeal to and retain younger professionals has become more of an imperative in light of the pipeline problem of fewer people pursuing accounting.
These firms partner with local universities but have also reached out to younger demographics in recent years.
"The earliest I would say we try to get in front of students is actually at the high school level," reported Corio. "So we have our Aspire program, which is both at the high school level and at the college level. In our Aspire program, we partner with local schools at this point in time because we do find it to be more beneficial for an in-person event. So we invite them out to our offices, and we give them just an overview on what does the industry look like, what does it mean to be an accountant, to be a tax advisor, to be an auditor, to give them insight into the profession as a whole, but then also giving them insight into WG and the culture and what it's like at a midsized firm because, usually, at the high school level, they might not even know what accounting is, but if they know anything, they might know the Big Four, that sort of thing. So, we try to get the midsized in front of them as early as we can. So that's more of a general information session. We try to make it fun, too. We do games and stuff. We give away prizes, raffles."
Smith Leonard has also adjusted its recruiting parameters.
"We're looking at younger and younger," Grimes said. "Also with our internships, we genuinely bring in interns with the intent to make them permanent employees."
Many of the firm's interns started their relationship with Smith Leonard through its popular student program.
"We do a two-day event," explained Grimes. "It's always at the end of May right after Memorial Day and we call it the summer tour. We usually have about 15 students who attend and it's pretty competitive just to get accepted to the two-day event. And they get to know people at the firm, all levels. We also go to various points of interest in the [Piedmont Triad region] where our offices are based in North Carolina. And we also incorporate client site visits. So they get to see who we're working with, what we do when we go there. We'll do the client site visit, get a tour of whatever facility or plant it is, and then meet with the CFO there. And that question-and-answer session is always lengthy — like, we have to cut the students off. The summer tour is our biggest feeder event to find interns. The vast majority of those we make internship offers to have attended the summer tour … So that's been a very successful event for us."
In addition to this type of outreach, Smith Leonard made an intentional effort to improve the programs that are important to young people.
"I've been with the firm almost four years and I would say in 2023 is when we really started recognizing the need to continue to beef up our policies and benefits," Grimes recalled. "The culture has always been there, what I mentioned earlier about the flexibility with work from home and all, but I think it's been a gradual process for some of the older guard to embrace people working less hours, but recognizing, 'Hey, we're still profitable and successful and meeting goals, but not burning people out. We want them to have a sustainable and long-term career.'"
Realize CPA is also conscious of providing opportunity across the whole firm, even as it has grown from what Townsend described as a smaller boutique firm to the midsized practice it is today.
"The manager group [asks,] 'Are these decisions what's best for everybody?'" he explained. "It's often a holistic approach to, 'Is this what's best for the firm, for all levels? Does this help everybody? Does this help everyone be happy? Does this help everyone stay long term? Are these the decisions that help us grow and give opportunities?' At the end of the day, yeah, we want to make really good money and we want to be successful, but we don't let that be the only driver of our culture. At the end of the day, really, it always comes back to, is this a place that we all want to work and we want to show up to every day? Because we work long hours so we want to enjoy it, right?"
