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.

Why Showing Gratitude to Your Employees Can Lead to Higher Productivity

Most employees cite their income, work environment, and company culture as reasons why they enjoy their roles. However, how they feel about their positions matters as well.

Employees feel good when their employers appreciate them. These employees often share their positive emotions with colleagues and coworkers. The cycle of smiles, generosity, and random acts of kindness impacts others in the organization. This leads to greater feelings of employee appreciation.

As a manager, you influence how your employees feel when they are at work. This is why you should be giving praise for employee achievements.

Providing autonomy and constructive feedback shows your employees they are valued and respected. This promotes engagement, productivity, and retention.

Discover how showing gratitude for your employees can increase productivity and how you can attain this objective.

Attractive Company Culture

Employees who feel appreciated often express gratitude for their colleagues and coworkers. This promotes feelings of appreciation throughout the organization. Companies that emphasize employee appreciation have an attractive culture. This encourages job seekers to apply to the organization.

Increased Employee Engagement

Employees who feel appreciated typically have high job satisfaction. They are committed to performing their best and reaching business goals. This results in strong customer satisfaction and revenue for a healthy bottom line.

Elevated Employee Performance

Expressing gratitude to your employees shows you appreciate their contributions and results. This creates a source of pride in their work. Employees who are proud of their achievements typically put in their best effort.

Stronger Employee Retention

Expressing gratitude to your employees shows they are valued and respected members of your team. This encourages your employees to perform their best. Employees who enjoy their roles are likely to remain with your organization long-term. This reduces hiring costs.

Methods to Express Employee Appreciation

  • Publicly give thanks for each employee’s specific contributions, results, and impacts on the organization.
  • Provide a donation in the employee’s name to a charity they care about.
  • Create a reward system that provides points to redeem for a gift card, remote work day, vacation day, or other awards.
  • Provide a bonus, pay increase, or promotion when appropriate.
  • Publicly give thanks for each employee’s specific contributions, results, and impacts on the organization.

Frequency of Employee Appreciation

A survey by Authentic Recognition found the following:

  • 2% Received Daily recognition
  • 11% Received Weekly recognition
  • 20% Received Quarterly recognition
  • 17% Received Annual recognition
  • 29% Received No recognition of any kind.

Source: https://authenticrecognition.com/how-frequently-should-you-give-recognition/

Want to Increase Your Team’s Productivity?

Expressing gratitude to your employees helps them feel valued and respected. This encourages your employees to remain engaged, productive, and loyal to your organization.

Many HR managers and People leaders follow the R.I.S.E. method when implementing their recognition program. This concept highlights how employee appreciation should be regular, immediate, specific, and encouraging.

If you’re looking for other ideas to express employee appreciation, or you need to add employees to your team, include Casey Accounting & Finance Resources in your hiring process. Learn more today.

 

Is Your Employee Engagement Hurting Your Company’s Financial Performance?

How do you know whether your employee engagement is helping or hindering your company? Setting and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs), asking employees to fill out surveys, or implementing stack ranking may be among your solutions.

Key Performance Indicators

A KPI is a measure that reflects company success or progress in relation to a specific goal. For example, financial KPIs typically are based on elements of the income statement or balance sheet. They may report changes in sales growth by product groups, channel or customer segments or in expense categories. Revenue growth rate, net profit and return on investment are commonly used metrics for employee performance. A company needs to use non-financial KPIs as well. Non-financial KPIs are other measures used to assess activities that are important to achievement of strategic objectives. Examples include measures that relate to customer relationships, employees, operations, quality, cycle-time and the company’s supply chain. By aligning business activities and individual actions with strategic objectives, you can better determine whether employee engagement is benefitting or harming your company.

Employee-Centered Key Performance Indicators

Employee-centered KPIs, such as employee engagement, satisfaction and turnover are also important metrics. Higher employee engagement is linked to higher customer satisfaction. When employees are happy and believe in their company, it comes across in their work. For this reason, companies with high employee engagement levels outperform companies with lower engagement levels according to customer ratings. Plus, because engaged employees are motivated to achieve more, they produce more than disengaged ones. In addition, companies with employee-centered strategies are more likely to encourage innovation, autonomy and employee ownership than companies that do not implement such strategies.

Employee Surveys

To measure engagement, you may ask employees to fill out surveys. Questions may include, “How meaningful is your work?” “How much do your opinions about work matter to your manager?” Or, “Are you proud to be a member of your team?” Another approach may be analyzing engagement levels such as management quality and time investment, influence from colleagues, relationships and work schedule. The second approach is more comprehensive and likely to be answered honestly, rather than with answers employees think leaders want to hear.

Stack Ranking

Stack ranking is a system that ranks employees according to their performance. Top employees are put in line for promotions while the bottom 5-10 percent are let go. One objective is to encourage communication between managers and employees so employees know why they rank where they do and how they can improve. Employees may learn why they are not regularly being promoted or prepare to be laid off for continual poor performance.

Work With a Chicago Staffing Firm

Find engaged employees through Casey Accounting and Finance Resources, a leader in Chicago employment!

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