How Teams Can Avoid a Burnout Crisis With an Employee-First Mindset — Part 1

 

Mar 14, 2022 | By Katie Thomas, CPA

About the Author: Katie Thomas, CPA is a content creator, 2021 40 under 40 CPA Practice Advisor recipient, and the owner of Leaders Online, where they help accounting professionals increase their impact, influence, and income through thought leadership and digital marketing. To get in touch with Katie, feel free to visit Leaders Online or connect with her on LinkedIn. 

America’s workforce is in a mental health and burnout crisis. 

In September of 2021, 4.4 million people quit their jobs, and these weren’t just retirees waiting to move on to the next chapters of their lives.

These people left their jobs for various reasons: Seeking higher pay, poor cultural fit, career change, and so much more.

For some time, money was the ultimate factor in employee retention; people needed to pay their bills, and they were willing to stay at a subpar job to get a paycheck. Now, employees expect much more from their employers. These new expectations, combined with the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic, have led to what many call the Great Resignation.

Long before the pandemic, the accounting industry, in particular, had been susceptible to burnout and a general feeling of being overworked. A few years ago, I experienced this while working in public accounting. Pre-pandemic accounting professionals were burnt out, and post-pandemic, it’s only getting worse. If accounting teams want to be successful in the future, they don’t have a choice but to proactively help their employees avoid burnout while making their work more fulfilling.

This all sounds great in theory, but how can accounting departments actually put this into practice?

Create a Culture That Values Mental Health and Well-Being

A staggering 43% of accountants believe their job is a primary factor in their poor mental health. Leaders must be responsible for recognizing the stresses of their employees and making decisions that consider their employees’ mental health and well-being.

Until somewhat recently, resources to help accounting teams operate more efficiently were just that: Resources to enhance employees’ effectiveness. But over the last few years, the impact a well-structured tech stack can make on an accounting team has expanded to affect employee morale, a critical factor given the wave of employee turnover. Every organizational decision, including decisions about tech stacks or applications to streamline workflow, should be made with the well-being of the team front and center. With this focus, company cultures can, and should, protect the mental health of their team at every turn no matter what challenges arise, including a global pandemic.

How do you build a culture like this? Well, it likely takes a lot of work, but here are some excellent starting points: 

1. Define the language, values, and standards for the culture you’re creating. Measures must be followed from the CEO down to the new hire to bring cohesiveness within the culture. Positivity, encouragement, and understanding are all excellent places to start.
2. Leaders must lead by example to reflect the company’s values. These individuals should be transparent, fun, spirited, and inspirational, yet they also need to be understanding and put the mental health of themselves and their employees first.
3. Create a workplace that values communication and fosters trust in the workplace. If management sets unrealistic deadlines, be sure your environment supports employees speaking up and voicing their concerns to management. In turn, management should respond appropriately. 

Building on these main points, it’s essential to recognize and support personal and professional advancements. Some easy ways firms can implement this into their culture today include firm-wide celebrations of promotions, birthdays, and anniversaries. Other examples include if a team member finishes a course or adds a CPA certification, acknowledge and celebrate these achievements.

Accounting leaders can go a step further by:

• Exploring interests together as a company, such as creating firm-wide hiking, biking, book, or wine clubs.
• Getting involved in civic or social causes and impacting beyond the workplace together.
• Holding quarterly or annual meetings in-person with remote workers.
• Holding regularly recurring Zoom meetings with remote workers to build team cohesion.
• Leverage outside resources to provide your accountants with extra support. Check out this helpful resource FloQast created for accountants to help maintain professional and personal balance. 

If you spend time creating a team culture that employees love, there’s a good chance they’ll feel less stressed and burnt out. Don’t think your accountants feel stressed? An alarming 98% of accountants feel stressed every single day. It must be the responsibility of the firm to address this stressful environment and get serious about making the necessary changes to protect accounting professionals and our industry as a whole.