“Because your greatest challenge at the moment is getting good people to work with”– Andrew Geddes, Australian accounting legend, Chair for 10 years of Greencross Ltd, a company which developed over 30 years from a very small veterinary surgery to be a Top 200 ASX company utilising the “Scaling up Process” that Geddes introduced to the Greencross leadership team 15 years ago.
Andrew Geddes joined Peter Towers, Managing Director, ESS BIZTOOLS in the ESS BIZTOOLS’ Business Advisory Services Podcast on the subject “Scaling up Strategies for Team Building”.
Andrew Geddes continued:
“Partners of accountancy firms are saying there are not enough of them (young accountants), but no, there are enough of them, they’ve chosen not to work in the accountancy profession because they’ve been asked to do compliance work only and to obtain 80% productivity which has caused people to say – I’m not sure I want to work in that environment”.
“I think accountants need to look at what they’ve asked people to do, their involvement with clients and taking them out on client visits as part of a business focus of what the outcomes are that our stakeholders want.”
“All of the professions are struggling to get people to come to work in their practices”.
“Now we have to pay them more and we’ve got to teach them, and the partners and directors have got to be available”.
“Having younger accountants work as your shadow with you on clients helps them work in project teams because we are teaching them about how to improve the business, how to communicate with clients and we are giving them the experiences that develop their experience and their skill base”.
“I think the profession has got to make itself more attractive for people to work in and talk about”.
“How do we make it more attractive?”
“By involving people more with clients and projects”.
“How do we make time available to teach people – I mean I’ve seen people do technical reviews on work and then throw it back at a junior accountant with little explanation and the junior accountant hasn’t got a clue on how to fix it”.
“In these situations they’re not being taught and they feel like their backsides have been kicked.”
“The attitude we take to work has got to be one of encouraging and providing opportunities and growing and developing people, more so than ever before, because there is a shortage of people”.
“Accounting firms are under a challenge at the moment and, I believe, we need to look at the scaling up methodology and apply it to ourselves and our practice so that the firm is a better place to work in”.
“The scaling up methodology requires a clear definition of the firm’s performance, its direction, its purpose and focuses values on the things you’ve got to nail to improve the performance of the firm”.
ESS BIZTOOLS was developed to assist accountants to be able to offer their SME clients services which would assist SMEs to run better businesses and add value to their businesses.
Andrew Geddes has identified that one of the main reasons that accountancy firms are having difficulties in retaining staff and attracting new staff is that there is not sufficient variety, challenging and interesting work being performed in public accounting firms which is creating staff shortages and this is the reason accounting firms are having difficulties in processing the work that is available.
Peter Towers asked Andrew Geddes the question “To start to implement the processes that you have described, should accountancy firms be doing it today or do they put it off for 6 months, when they might not be as busy?”
Andrew Geddes replied emphatically “YOU’VE GOT TO START IT NOW – THIS AFTERNOON!” “BECAUSE YOUR GREATEST CHALLENGE AT THE MOMENT IS GETTING GOOD PEOPLE TO WORK WITH”.
You are invited to visit our new website www.essbiztools.com.au to get an overview of the packages which ESS BIZTOOLS has developed which are being utilised by accountancy firms all over Australia to deliver diversified value-added services which will enable your accountancy firm to deliver a range of challenging and interesting work for the benefit of your clients, your team and your firm.
WIN, WIN, WIN ALL ROUND!
Now is the time – this afternoon – to start your firm’s journey to being able to offer a range of interesting, challenging and diversified services to assist clients, your team and your firm in the challenges of 2022! Link to ESS BIZTOOLS’ Business Advisory Services Podcast – click here.
Peter Towers, Managing Director, ESS BIZTOOLS
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