Thanksgiving Inspo, and Gratitude From Our Homes to Yours

Just about everyone is pretty pumped to plan their Thanksgiving celebrations. The preparations, cooking, table settings, decorating your home, matching outfits, and more. In advance of the upcoming holiday, we want to provide some valuable advice and inspiration so that you can whip up a great time – whether you go big or keep it on the light side. We’ve got your back!

The Food

Just Google search “best Thanksgiving food sites 2023,” and you’ll receive a myriad of ideas from the traditional to the trendy, homecooked or ordering meal kits online, restaurants that are open, or food trucks for a more casual affair. And, if turkey isn’t your jam, try alternatives like steak or prime rib, brisket, lamb, or a pot roast. Maybe this year, it’s a charcuterie Thanksgiving. Or breakfast/brunch becomes a new tradition for you and your friends and family. Whatever you decide, you’ll find plenty of ideas on the Internet.

Finally, if you have a cooking question on Thanksgiving Day, here is a list of several hotlines to help you with your needs.

The Decorations

Not all of us have a Martha Stewart gene in our family tree. Here are some easy DIY decorations that won’t require a glue gun and YouTube videos.

Don’t forget about your table settings. Find more dreamy inspiration at this website.

What We’re Thankful For

“I am very thankful for my family, friends, and co-workers who have always been supportive, nurturing, and loving to me. They are always there for me when I  need them.” – Eileen Renk, Casey Accounting & Finance Resources Director of Recruiting and Sales

“I’m thankful for the traveling I got to do this year! Aside from Midwest travel, I got to visit Colorado, Maine, Italy, and Mexico for Christmas.” – Julie Jurek, Arlington Resources Sourcing Specialist

“This season, I am thankful for joining a caring and thriving team. I’m grateful for the opportunity to be challenged every day by learning a new industry, interviewing top HR professionals, and serving our clients with top quality.” –  Courtney Thome, Arlington Resources Talent Acquisition Consultant

“I am most Thankful for my Good Health & Family. I am blessed to have my 92 year old grandfather on this earth still. Especially around the holidays is when I cherish making memories with him the most.” – Nina Salgado, HR Administrative Assistant

“So much to think about here, I am thankful for incredible friendships that I have built over many years now that I don’t have family anymore. The opportunity to be in a career for the past 26 years that allows me to change peoples’ lives every day and make an impact in our working world is very rewarding.  I am also thankful for the opportunities I have been presented in life that have helped me to grow and become a better person” – Denise Young, Arlington Resources Director of Recruiting and Sales

“I am thankful for my loving family, who are always there for me when I need them, and for having a hobby that brings me joy. Reading is a great escape from everyday life!”  Elizabeth Lanaghan, Arlington Resources Senior Recruiter & Sales Consultant

“Family is the most important to me always and for what I am most thankful. God has blessed me with an amazing husband and two daughters that have forever changed my life. I love my job and what I do on a daily basis, and I put my heart into it for my family.” – Cheryl Reinwald, Arlington Resources Director of Recruiting and Sales

Sending you a Harvest of Blessings

We hope Thanksgiving brings you reasons to be grateful, as we are so grateful for you. May your hearts be as warm as your kitchens, and we wish you good health and good times.

And remember, if you have a last-minute staffing need, we are here to fill your open positions so you can focus on filling your hearts and tummies.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Supporting Your Employees’ Goals in 2023

Supporting your employees’ goals in 2023 is more essential than ever. Employees are finding new employers with better opportunities at a rapid pace. As a result, employee retention during The Great Resignation is extremely important.

How you support your employees in reaching their goals impacts whether you are an employer of choice. This affects your ability to attract and retain talent. The following ideas can help.

Implement these suggestions to support your employees’ goals in 2023.

Prioritize Employee Mental Health

Most employees continue to experience mental health challenges that began during the pandemic. Increasing exposure to stress can lead to anxiety, depression, and burnout. These factors impact employee engagement, productivity, and performance. They also affect job satisfaction, employee morale, and retention rates.

You can help your employees reach their goals for positive mental health by providing additional support for overall wellness:

  • Maintain an open-door policy for your employees to privately talk with you about their personal and professional challenges. Emphasize that these discussions are free from judgment or consequences.
  • Encourage your employees to get enough sleep each night. This helps maintain emotional resilience and performance throughout the workday.
  • Remind your employees to use all of their paid time off each year. They need time away from work to rest and rejuvenate.

Encourage Employees’ Soft Skill Development  

Many employees believe their soft skills were impacted by the social isolation caused by the coronavirus. This is especially true for Gen Z, whose educational and career goals were difficult to achieve during social distancing and lockdowns.

Many members of Gen Z say their education did not effectively prepare them to enter the workforce. They missed out on developing the soft skills that are essential for career success. This includes networking, speaking to groups, and negotiating.

Employees from other generations experienced a lapse in their soft skills due to working remotely. The lack of in-person interaction significantly increased stress, exhaustion, and burnout.

You can support your employees’ goal of soft skill development by providing online skills training courses and opportunities to implement their learning. You also can match your employees with mentors to model and develop the soft skills required to advance within your organization. Plus, you can assign group projects that require collaboration among teammates.

Need Additional Guidance for Supporting Your Employees’ Goals?

Prioritizing employee mental health and encouraging soft skill development help support your employees’ goals in 2023. These actions increase employee engagement, productivity, and retention. They also lower your hiring, onboarding, and training costs.

For further advice on supporting your employees’ goals, get in touch with Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. Connect with us today.

Why Some Accountants Do Not Like Their Jobs and How to Help

Traditional accounting career paths do not fit today’s accountants. This is why many accountants do not like their jobs.

Most accountants do not want to remain with the same company throughout their careers. Instead, they want to change employers to diversify their skill sets.

The lack of opportunities for advancement causes many accountants to be dissatisfied with their jobs. These accountants value professional development and promotions.

Employers tend to focus solely on having accountants complete their work at the office. However, today’s accountants typically desire flexibility, meaning, and purpose in their roles.

Discover why many accountants dislike their jobs and what managers can do to help.

Long Work Days

Many accountants are expected to work at least 60 hours each week. This can be longer during tax season. As a result, these accountants have limited time to fulfill personal responsibilities and interests.

Limited Professional Development

Many accountants work for companies with prestigious reputations. However, these accountants often lack opportunities to reach their full potential with the organization.

Accountants who work for large firms tend to specialize in audit, tax, materials and acquisitions, or another narrow field. As a result, these accountants do not learn how the business operates as a whole.

The lack of variety in accounting responsibilities can be frustrating. Accountants who are unable to develop their skills tend to be unfulfilled in their jobs.

Difficulty Changing Practices

Choosing between public and private practice impacts an accountant’s career. Each type of practice requires different personalities and skill sets. As a result, switching to the other practice after establishing a career can be difficult.

Accountants who change from private to public practice or vice versa may need to start from the bottom and work their way up. This can cause significant professional setbacks after years of career establishment.

Tips to Increase Job Satisfaction

Accountants tend to prioritize work-life balance. This means many accountants prefer jobs with remote or hybrid work and a flexible schedule over higher-paying jobs that require onsite work during set hours. Offering these perks can increase accountants’ job satisfaction.

Most accountants want variety in their jobs. Consider letting them cross-train to take on additional duties and responsibilities. These accountants can cover when their colleagues are off work.

Accountants typically desire meaningful work. Providing challenging tasks and projects that require creativity and problem-solving promotes engagement and productivity.

Want Help Sourcing Accountants?

Many accountants work long hours and have limited opportunities for professional development. This lack of skill development makes it difficult to switch between public or private practice after career establishment. Managers can alleviate these issues by allowing flexibility for work-life balance and diversifying job duties and responsibilities.

If you are having difficulty sourcing qualified accountants, Casey Accounting & Finance Resources can help. Reach out today.

3 Old-School Ways That Still Yield Recruiting Results

As recruiters, we utilize many recruiting sources to match the right candidate to our clients’ job order requests. Even though the economy is improving and more people are going back to work, we can have difficulty in finding the best candidate. With our years of experience, we have used a number of tactics to break through recruiting challenges. While job boards are helpful, we thought we would share some of the older methods that are still very effective.

Discover three old-school methods that still generate strong candidates.

Build Relationships

Create and expand on your connections. The more people in your sphere of influence, the more folks you can seek out when you are recruiting for your next open position.

Ask for Referrals

Our current clients are a top source for future clients and job orders. We ask for referrals from the clients who trust us to exceed their expectations. We often find commonalities with the referrals who may operate in the same industry, are the same size or need similar roles filled. You can use your existing professional relationships to help with candidate referrals.

Monitor Your Ratios

Your recruiting primary ratio shows how many candidate presentations you must give to obtain a quality candidate. Your goal should be no higher than 3:1. You may want to invest time in researching and planning to find the types of candidates you need. Additionally, match your primary ratio of quality candidates to send-outs. The lower the ratio, the better you are at matching what your hiring managers are looking for with qualified candidates. Pay attention to the job requirements, a fit to your company culture, and hiring goals and objectives to keep this ratio at 2:1 or better.

Work with a Staffing Leader

Enhancing client relationships and asking for referrals are two ways to widen the pool of potential candidates. Paying attention to your ratios and working to improve them also is effective.

When you need your accounting and finance job orders filled, reach out to Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. We ranked on the Forbes 2020 top 250 Best Professional Recruiting Firms in America. Learn more about our services today.

Management Challenges to Avoid

Managing an accounting and finance team has its challenges. Among them are adequate communication with your team, performance levels meeting standards, and maintaining enough team members to handle workflows. Fortunately, there are ways to overcome these issues and continue to move forward.

Discover three challenges most accounting and finance managers face and how to avoid them. 

Low Communication with the Team  

Inadequate communication with your team members can lead to problems down the road. For instance, your employees may not understand their role in a project, what they should be focusing on at a given time, or when the work should be done by. To avoid these issues, talk with your employees on a frequent basis. Redefine your standards for reaching team goals and objectives. Ensure your employees understand their individual and team responsibilities and deadlines. Reinforce the importance of asking questions.

Performance Levels Below Expectations

Your employees will have times where they are less productive than usual. This can affect your other team members, especially if they need to take on additional tasks to maintain productivity. When this happens, you need to motivate your employees to get back to their typical performance level. For instance, schedule time to talk privately with your team member. Clarify what their work hours, targets, and goals are. Compare your expectations to actual performance. Ask what has been causing the employee’s decrease in performance and how you can help. Work together to create a plan to improve by a certain deadline. Provide constructive feedback until you get together for further discussion.

The Team Is Understaffed

Consistently having more work than your employees can handle can lead to burnout. This is why you should consider adding a permanent or temporary member to your team. The additional worker can take on tasks that team members had been adding to their plates. This division of responsibilities allows everyone to focus on what they do best while reducing stress levels.

Work with a Professional Recruiter

Managing an accounting and finance team poses significant challenges. Among them is lack of adequate communication with your team, employees not meeting performance expectations, and regularly having too much work for your team to handle. Fortunately, these issues can be worked on with clear planning and action.

When you need help finding qualified accounting and finance candidates who are a good fit for your company and department cultures, partner with a recruiter from Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. Find out more today.

The Top Technologies Impacting the Accounting Industry

With increasing regulation and client demands, your company may be automating its time-consuming tasks. Using technology to perform repetitive, low-value tasks frees up time for accountants to add increased value to the organization. Here are four top technologies impacting the accounting industry.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) analyzes large volumes of data at high speed and uses machine learning to make predictions about the data. AI helps accountants increase productivity and accuracy while decreasing costs. For instance, automating administrative tasks that involve data handling and processing increases compliance. The technology can quickly generate a tax report with guaranteed accuracy. AI can recognize and categorize data from various sources for the right accounting head. Accountants use the technology for monthly or quarterly close procedures, procurement, accounts payable and receivable, audit and expense management. AI chatbots can quickly answer questions about bill due dates, current account balances and the status on accounts.

Robotic Process Automation

Robotic process automation (RPA) uses software tools to transform the audit process from a handmade process to an assembly line process. Rather than using a variety of computer-dependent tools and processes linked by manual steps and keystrokes, new software combines such actions into one automated process. RPA automates repetitive tasks like copying and pasting information to improve audit quality, business processes and services provided by public accounting firms. For instance, many tax activities, such as calculating book-tax differences and preparing tax returns, are automated by RPA. Also, revenue audits are automated by software robots performing rules-based functions to execute reconciliations, analytical procedures and dual-purpose procedures.

Cloud Technology

Cloud technology uses accounting software to host data on someone else’s server and make the data available on any device with an internet connection. Accountants access and edit the same files from anywhere at any time. Scanning invoices, purchase orders, account statements and other documents into the cloud makes them available any time from anywhere. Securely storing files in the cloud means reduced cost due to less need for physical storage space. Real-time updates mean accountants access current information to make faster, more informed decisions. Giving accounting teams access to the same information streamlines accounting practices.

Mobile Accounting

Mobile accounting means accounting professionals can input data, update tax information, or run reports from anywhere. Team members can record expenses or payments any time from anywhere and gain updated information on the financial health of the company. Accountants access emails, balance sheets, tax data, files and other information from anywhere. They also can retrieve statements, exchange notes and easily communicate. Plus, accountants create and send invoices, perform bank reconciliations, track time and billable hours, add receipts and submit expenses with mobile technology. Using the right combination of efficient, scalable, secure technologies results in decreased costs, greater financial stability and improved business growth.

Hire Technologically Savvy Accountants

Hire technologically savvy accountants through a leading Rolling Meadows employment agency. Casey Accounting & Finance Resources provides high-performance candidates who will make strong contributions to your business. Contact us to find out more today!

Want to Be More Profitable: Improve Your Culture!

A profitable company culture requires people, processes and systems to be geared toward optimizing profitability. Each employee must behave in a way that promotes the organization’s financial success. They must understand that their actions determine whether other individuals want to work for the company and whether customers remain loyal. As a result, if you want your company to be more profitable, you need to work on improving its culture. Here’s how.

Leadership

Getting leadership on board with implementing cultural change is one step in transforming the entire organization. You need leadership’s consensus, commitment and support to guide their teams in creating desired change. Share how much more profitable your business can be by developing an attractive culture to increase employee and customer retention.

Desired Outcomes

Working with leadership to clearly define desired outcomes and profitability lets you clarify company goals for cultural change. You need a method for getting teams inspired to create cultural change and determine whether you’re making progress. Making clear progress and achieving small victories improves motivation to continue implementing change. A 1%-3% in a few key metrics can mean a significant increase in your bottom line.

Uniqueness

Establishing a unique culture helps you build a following. As with your employees’ individuality, unique aspects of your culture differentiate your company from the competition. When your culture sounds, feels and is experienced unlike any other, it attracts top talent and customers. Begin identifying your company’s uniqueness by examining your purpose. Focus on why your business exists and whom it serves. Come up with what uniquely differentiates your culture and makes it attractive. Make that obvious in your culture.

Communication

Having leadership communicate the benefits of cultural change to their teams helps get them on board with implementation. Employees need to understand how an improved culture and increased profitability benefit them. They also need their questions and concerns addressed before deciding to move forward. Understanding the expected value to the company and employees increases buy-in for cultural change.

Accountability

Because what is measured is done, you need to hold employees accountable for implementing cultural change. As a result, you must establish a performance management process in line with new cultural expectations. Include clear rewards, recognition and consequences for performance. Also, monitor and measure key performance metrics to determine profitability. Your goal is to improve both at the same time.

Work with a Leading Rolling Meadows Staffing Firm

To find top candidates who can increase profits, work with a leading Rolling Meadows staffing firm. Casey Accounting & Finance Resources provides professionals with innovative and creative solutions that exceed expectations and help achieve company goals and objectives. Reach out to learn more today!