How Important is Compensation?
Source: Accounting Office Management & Administration Report
For this special compensation issue, AOMAR interviewed several CPA firm leaders to get their insights on compensation and how it is changing. The issue also presents selected results from IOMA's 2010 Accounting Firm Compensation Benchmark Survey. Here are a few highlights from AOMAR's report:
- Firm leaders agree that staff salary freezes can't continue indefinitely without causing employee resentment and defections.
- A return to hiring by other industries is putting pressure on CPA firms to step up their recruiting efforts.
- Surveys show a high degree of willingness among staff members to change firms or leave the profession for better opportunities, with compensation being a high priority.
- According to the IOMA survey, respondents rated firm performance as “poor” in meeting compensation expectations in 2009 and 2010.
- Firm leaders say that fear of losing top talent is putting pressure on them to increase compensation.
AOMAR says that firm leaders are no longer merely “anxious” about compensation and retention issues. “There's a building sense of frustration, anger and resentment.” Comments and survey responses by firm leaders and employees reflect a “disconnect” between partners and staff regarding the role and importance of compensation.
For the complete article, read “Compensation Rising, ‘Coddling' Ending.”
From Accounting Office Management & Administration Report, Institute of Management and Administration, Inc., Newark, NJ, [email protected], January 2011, p. 1.