The ‘War for Talent’ is a conversation that is taking place around the world. It has been a key topic of discussion in presentations and was raised by delegates throughout The Alternative Accountancy Strategic IT conference held in November 2021. The priority for firms, as always, is the retention of good people within the accountancy firm.
The Challenge for Accountancy Firms
One of the biggest issues for Accountancy Firms in the War for Talent, and one which has been a major challenge for many years now, is that employees can feel uncomfortable when they are struggling and rather than ask for help, they tend to power on through until they are mentally exhausted and completely burned out. They then leave the company.
Holding onto the good people you already have in your firm is one of the key steps to winning the War for Talent. Employees have in-depth knowledge of the role, your company and the industry so losing key members is truly a major loss for any firm.
But how do you listen to your team when they won’t tell you how they are really feeling?
3 steps to winning the War for Talent
Step 1 – Listen to the data!
Currently, a firm only sees what an employee puts on the timesheet. It’s generally a fictional snapshot of the employee’s day as the person usually completes the timesheet at the end of the day or week. This means it can be more difficult to remember calls and activity that should be logged. As long as 7.5 hours or so is complete the firm can continue billing and an employee feels like they have done their admin duty.
However, with WorkCapcha your timesheet gives the whole picture. You also get to see activity that’s not recorded on the timesheet. That’s because WorkCapcha tracks the digital journey, it is giving a full picture of what an employee’s day really looks like.
Because WorkCapcha is built within Microsoft Teams it connects to applications including Outlook, Teams Calls, Xero, Silverfin, Planner, Word, iManage, SharePoint, OneDrive to name but a few. If you have a meeting, send an email or access a Xero client, the time, duration and client name is in your WorkCapcha DayBook, ready for you to allocate the activity to your Timesheet. Employees no longer have to remember what they have done or make it up.
Step 2 – Use this data to have meaningful discussions around wellbeing!
The WorkCapcha dashboard gives insights that you’ve never had before enabling you to listen to the data and answer questions by looking at the patterns that emerge.
WorkCapcha will help answer questions such as:-
- What does someone’s work pattern look like?
- Are they working too many hours?
- Do we need more resources?
- Is something taking longer than it should?
- Is there a problem with the process?
- Do we need to offer training?
- Should we review the software used?
Step 3 – Retain good people!
It costs around 30% of an employee’s salary to replace them. This excludes training, HR costs and the time it takes to rebuild the relationship with your clients.
Don’t let your competitors look after ‘YOUR’ good people.
Talk to us today to find out how WorkCapcha can help your accountancy firm.