RETENTION

Why accountants leave their jobs

When it comes to the accounting shortage, much attention has been paid to the pipeline and to employers’ struggle to hire qualified staff. But another factor exacerbating the shortage deserves more attention: turnover. A new survey by the Illinois CPA Society (ICPAS) sheds light on the causes of turnover, where employees go once they leave, and what employers can do to improve retention.

Turnover at CPA firms averages 15%, according to an INSIDE Public Accounting report, and turnover at professional services firms, including the Big Four accounting firms, averaged 13.4% in 2022. Almost 84% of accounting turnover is voluntary.

Turnover can lead to increased workloads for staff of all levels, and work can “trickle up” as well as down, the ICPAS survey found. The survey polled 433 employees and 449 employers, representing both businesses and public accounting firms, who were current or former members of ICPAS. According to the results, 65% of employers said turnover placed a higher burden on staff at similar levels as the employees who left, and 67% said it increased workloads for staff at leadership levels.

Click here for more on building a retention culture.—CV

PRESENTED BY BETTERCLOUD

Dump the AI tax

Software vendors are adding new AI features—awesome! But many are using those new features to charge an “AI tax” (aka more $$$ for software licenses and increased renewal fees). Uhh, less awesome.

Keep your SaaS costs in line and avoid surprise charges with BetterCloud.

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• Find + eliminate unused licenses.
• Control departmental spending.
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Goodbye, excess SaaS spending. Hello, BetterCloud.

TALENT MANAGEMENT

The weird anomaly of remote accounting jobs right now

You’ve read about the accountant shortage already—and maybe even in a certain newsletter.

You know about the dip in accounting majors and the innovative efforts to attract new students. You know about the aging workforce and the surprising reasons accountants leave their jobs.

But another, seemingly conflicting phenomenon has been building at the same time, at least according to ZipRecruiter and other employment marketplace data.

Remote accounting jobs are thriving, according to ZipRecruiter’s chief economist, Julia Pollak. On the employment marketplace’s platform, available remote accounting roles jumped from around 8% in 2019 to almost 20% in 2023, per CNBC. And a similar trend has popped up elsewhere: FlexJobs, a remote work marketplace, ranked accountant as its No. 1 most popular and searched-for job title in the US in 2024.

Accountant shortage? We don’t know her.

Want more on the jump in remote accounting jobs? Click here. —NP

PIPELINE

Gen Z talent

Fewer students are majoring in accounting and taking the CPA exam, which is contributing to the accountant shortage. To get more perspective on why students might not find accounting careers as attractive—and what employers can do to attract young accounting and finance talent—we spoke with Natalie Griffith, director of generations insights, and Jack Mackinnon, senior director of cultural insights, of consumer research firm Collage Group.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What should CFOs know about this generation, in terms of hiring them or working with them?

Mackinnon: [They have a] highly critical nature: the ability to look at a process, to look at a system, to look at the work that’s being done, and to be able to criticize it, to improve it immediately…This is the generation that has had a seat at the table with their families, with their teachers, and they really come expecting to participate. And so there is less of a focus on hierarchy.

Another aspect of Gen Z is that they’re going to find themselves in more stable, corporate, more traditional-looking companies, but they’re going to be pushing for change within those companies.

Click here for more tips on recruiting Gen Z.—NP

TOGETHER WITH BETTERCLOUD

Clear up your stack. Eliminate shadow IT (and all that unnecessary SaaS spend) with BetterCloud. Give IT and finance visibility into your complete SaaS environment with one spend management platform. Learn which apps you’re actually using—and which are collecting dust and wasting $$$. Check out BetterCloud in action.

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