My Morning with 17 Young CPA Firm Staff

As we all know, the future lies with our youth. To drill down on that, I convened a Staff Forum recently – one staff person from 17 different firms: 11 men and 6 women. Ages ranged mostly from 25-27 with 3-4 years of experience with their firms. I asked them a myriad of questions about their jobs, their firms, their partners and what’s important to them.

What do you like most about your job? The tremendous exposure to the business world.

What do you like the least about your job? Unrealistic time and budget expectations of partners and the stress caused by their workload and client demands.

What do you think about the tax season? Short-term – tolerable, especially because it’s the winter; it’s only for a few months and we get to work less after April 15. Long-term – majority say the tax season could eventually drive them out of the profession.

Why did you choose the firm you work for? Very little had to do with ways that one firm might be truly different than another. Most of the responses had to do with (1) how much the staff liked the partners (the importance of which can never be overstated) and (2) location (downtown vs. suburban).

What do you think of your firm’s mentoring programs? Half had mentoring programs; they saw the programs as very beneficial. The staff want involvement in the match between mentor and mentee. Sometimes there was no chemistry with the mentor assigned to them, creating an awkward situation.

Do you know what it takes to be a partner at your firm? A resounding “no.” (I hope partners reading this will take note.)

Do women feel that their long-term career and partner opportunities are the same as for men? None of the females in our staff forum aspired to be a partner because they don’t see it being compatible with raising a family.

How many total work hours do you think your partners work? The group’s average guess was a staggering 3,219. Actual, per The Rosenberg Survey, is 2,450. Our staff group sees partners working when they leave the office and feel that they work nights and weekends on client or firm related activities.

How much money do your partners earn? The average staff response was $290,000, 28% below the actual of $382,000. Six of the participants guessed $250,000 or less.

Overall satisfaction with their jobs. Average rating was 7.9 with 10 being the highest.

What’s most important to staff? (1) Compensation (2) advancement opportunities (3) work-life balance, (4) having supervisors who are good bosses.

What do you think are the biggest misconceptions about your generation? We’ve observed on multiple occasions that partners bitch and moan about the negative differences. However, when we asked the staff, they didn’t seem to feel the differences are that great.

What are examples of flexibility that appeal to you? Flexibility of when they start work and when they stop work. Also, working from home is very desirable.

What is your preferred method of communication?  Staff understand the importance of face-to-face communication. However they also acknowledge the benefits of email because it provides a written record and allows the sender to think things out before responding.  The majority felt the most effective form of communication is a face-to-face meeting followed up by a confirming email.

Firms hiring interns and recent college graduates rely on Rosenberg’s monograph How CPA Firms Work: The Business of Public Accounting to provide a solid foundation in the CPA firm industry. Take advantage of our generous bulk discounts to purchase copies to give to every new employee your firm hires.