august2022 - 35

BRIDGING THE GAP
Process Issues with
People Impacts
ARIANNA CAMPBELL
Director, Boomer Consulting, Inc.
arianna.campbell@cpapracticeadvisor.com
BY NOW, YOUR firm is likely feeling the effects of the Great Resignation (or the Great Reshuffle).
Many baby boomers are retiring, and millennials and Gen Zers are looking for jobs with more
flexibility and work/life balance. While every industry is being impacted, the accounting
profession faces a dire talent shortage when the need for solid talent is steadily increasing.
Increasing compensation,
focusing on employee well-being,
and filling gaps with outsourcing
and automation are strategies for
overcoming the talent shortage.
But have you considered how inefficient
processes are impacting your
talent?
Let's look at nine wasteful
activities your firm needs to address
to improve your odds of attracting
and retaining top talent.
DEFECTS
Defects include mistakes like transposing
numbers, entering incorrect
information or not following procedures
and quality guidelines. When
people enter the wrong information
and get the wrong product back, it
takes a morale toll.
Using technology to autopopulate
trial balances, financial
statements, tax returns and other
elements of client engagements
reduces such errors.
OVERPRODUCTION
Overproduction happens when
people do more work than necessary.
Examples include spending
significant time on tax returns
that will be extended anyway or
prioritizing the wrong projects.
Overproduction usually leads
to people picking up and putting
down work repeatedly, duplication
of efforts and frustration.
WAITING
Waiting is any non-value-added
time during which your team members
aren't performing value-added
productive work. This could involve
waiting on client information or
waiting on reviewers.
When people must stop work
to wait on a client or things sent
to reviewers take forever to come
back, people have to waste time
relearning or researching where
they were when they last worked
on the project.
This might take a tiny amount
of time on an individual project
level, but it wastes a lot of time
collectively.
NOT UTILIZING PEOPLE'S
TALENTS
We waste resources when higherskilled
people perform lower-skilled
work. This might happen due to
poor training, hoarding work or not
leveraging technology.
Whatever the root causes, you'll
struggle to retain talent when
people want to grow but are forced
to do the same low-level tasks
repeatedly.
TRANSPORTING
Transporting is waste from passing
around paper files and information
from person to person instead of
utilizing technology to automate
workflows and share information.
It's 2022-new college graduates
don't want to step back in time 20
years to deal with piles of paperwork
when they start a new job.
That misalignment with everyday
life will send them to competitors
who invest in modern tech.
INVENTORY
Inventory sounds like terminology
for the retail industry, but it also
applies to a firm's client engagements.
Work-in-process and
backlogs in email inboxes create
bottlenecks and make it tough to
get client engagements across the
finish line.
Being pulled in a dozen different
directions and dealing with competing
priorities due to misalignment
at the partner and manager level
on what needs to be done and when
creates stale inventory. This also
negatively impacts the firm because
that's how we get paid.
MOTION
Motion is the result of going on scavenger
hunts for information. People
waste time and effort searching
through poorly named digital files
or digging through poorly organized
or overfilled physical files.
All of this leads to wasted time
people could spend doing the work
instead of searching.
EXCESS PROCESSING
Excess processing is doing more
work than the client values or is
willing to pay for. Examples include
over-auditing or navigating multiple
personal preferences of partners.
Spending time managing how
people do the work takes a toll
because it puts undue pressure on
team members to keep it straight
and compounds waste.
ATTITUDE
Negative attitudes, poor morale
and refusal to follow firm processes
impede progress. If the prevailing
mindset across the firm, especially
amongst leadership, is " this is how
we've always done it, " you won't be
able to keep people.
People aren't interested in being
in a firm where they aren't growing,
so you need to cultivate a growth
mindset.
Do any of these wasteful activities
sound familiar? If so, they're a
big part of why your firm is having
trouble attracting and retaining
talent. Each of these wasteful
activities has a people impact, so
solve your process issues and you'll
be well on the way to solving your
people issues.
Is your firm ready to stop wasting
time on inconsistent and bloated
processes? ■
AUGUST 2022 ■ www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com
35

http://www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

august2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of august2022