Managing everything, all at once

One of the things that many of our Best Firms for Women have in common is that they have a lot more than one thing in common.

In fact, even a quick look at them reveals that most of them have implemented a similar roster of programs and initiatives on their way to becoming workplaces of choice ­— and those rosters are pretty long. From maternity leave, childcare support, paid time off, stress-relieving activities during busy season and team-building events in the slow season, to hybrid work schedules, open-door policies, mentoring, and much more, there is an extensive playbook of strategies that the top workplaces in accounting put in place to recruit and retain women and advance them to leadership roles.

Of course, that extensive playbook is also used by the members of our broader Best Firms to Work For ranking. Over the almost two decades that we've been publishing that list, more and more of its members have converged on a common set of roughly 20 to 30 best practices that they use to set themselves apart.

That convergence on a set of best practices, though, isn't my point. The point is that the Best Firms are converging on all or most of those best practices. In other words, no single solution on its own will elevate a firm; they need to pick up most of the elements in the suite.

We've noticed a similar thing when it comes to growth strategies for our Top 100 Firms: Where individual firms used to report one or at most two different growth strategies as their focus for the year ahead, it's now common for them to offer up a laundry list of strategies.

The point is that so many of the challenges that firms face — whether they revolve around capacity, succession challenges, commoditization, the rise of artificial intelligence, the drive to build advisory practices, or any of a dozen other major issues — are not susceptible to single solutions. Their complexity requires multiple tactics, often implemented at the same time.

Take the capacity and workforce problems most firms are facing: Raising the salaries you pay may help, but it won't suffice. There aren't enough people to hire, and they often don't stay as long as you need. The firms that are having the most success in generating more capacity are also exploring offshoring, working on automation, trying partnerships with other professional service providers, firing C and D clients, and working hard on their retention strategies. No single answer will solve a challenge as multifaceted as accounting's pipeline problem.

And that's the point: In an era where, more and more, everything is happening all at once and everywhere, no single answer will solve any of a firm's challenges — and if you're just taking one single approach to any given issue, be aware that that might not be enough.