The Worst Thing a Public Accounting Firm Can Do to Its Senior Associates
Despite what the campus recruiters might say to you, public accounting is not all sunshine and rainbows. While the experience can be rewarding, you can put in a lot of time and effort into the process. As you rise up through the ranks, that time and effort gets split among different responsibilities. As you gain more experience, your role will change on any given engagement. Many firms typically operate on a career progression model that assumes nearly everyone involved in the process wants to get better every year, take on new responsibilities, and make more money. This model is critical to today's lesson on the worst thing that a public accounting firm can do to its experienced senior associates. Before we jump in, you need to know a couple of things:
How Promotion Decisions Are Made in Public Accounting Firms - while the mechanics of a promotion decision might differ from firm to firm, the one common thread I see across all public accounting firms is that the employee will be given the opportunity to take on some of the responsibilities of the next role before they are promoted. In some cases, this is not voluntary. Check out my other blog on field promotion to learn more about those circumstances. An example of this is when an associate is tasked with completing a new section of the audit or tax return that is usually completed by a senior associate. This allows the associate to get some exposure to more complex areas and prove that they are ready for that promotion. Most of the time, this is done with good intentions and is truly meant to be a training exercise.
The Responsibilities of a Senior Associate - a good senior associate can do almost anything with supervision. Seniors:
Can do anything the associates can do, and can help an associate if they are stuck
Are learning how to handle more complex areas of their work, and therefore expanding their toolkits which will enable them to slot into different engagements
Are often the primary point of contact for a client on a day-to-day basis
Can be responsible for ensuring the file is complete and ready for manager and partner review
Can support some manager level activities with supervision
In short, senior associates can do a lot of things, and can be quite flexible in the role that they fill on any given engagement.
The Difference Between Seniors and Managers - while part of a manager's job can be to be a more technical and flexible version of a senior associate, other responsibilities involve people skills and communication skills. Some examples of these responsibilities are:
Writing formal evaluations for human resource purposes
Leading team meetings and conference calls
Hosting clients at lunch
Being the person responsible for the completion of the engagement (issuance of financial statements or filing of return, not just completing the work papers)
These people oriented skills are what separates Managers from senior associates. It's hard to get promoted to manager without first proving yourself in these types of areas.
What's the WORST Thing a Public Accounting Firm Can Do to Its Senior Associates?
Now that you know all the background, I'm letting you know that the worst thing a public accounting firm can do to its senior associates (in my opinion) is to not give them the opportunities to learn and grow into the manager role. Let me explain why this happens:
The transition from associate to senior associate is easy in many cases as it involves building on the skills of a successful associate and gradually exposing new areas where those skills can shine.
The transition from senior associate to manager is much more difficult because it involves developing new skills that need to be consciously cultivated and practiced.
Senior associates are like a Swiss army knife in public accounting. A good senior associate knows how to complete most or all areas in a file and can work very efficiently in many areas due to their experience.
Sometimes staffing situations at public accounting firms will force experienced senior associates to be more of a workhorse on their engagements because that's the best way to get the job done. Experienced senior associates are smart, have plenty of work experience, and need significantly less hand holding then other staff. But this efficiency comes at a steep cost: if a senior associate is too busy doing the work, then they won't be developing the people skills necessary to become a manager. Firms can fall into this trap because doing more work as an associate is usually a good way to prepare for the senior associate role, but the same cannot be said for senior associates preparing for manager due to those people oriented skills.
Why Is That So Bad?
While it may seem good to be the “go-to” person for managers and to constantly be praised for your ability to complete work, being promoted to manager requires the other skills I mentioned above. I’ve seen many instances of people being passed up for promotion because they are not ready on the people-skills side of things. The problem is: the workhorse senior is never given the opportunity to develop those skills because they are so busy doing work, and that is the fault of management. Firms that overleverage the technical skills of their senior associates and neglect the development of their people skills are setting them up for failure when it comes time for promotions. So after all that hard work as a senior associate, they are told that they aren’t ready to be a manager. If you find yourself in or near this situation, it’s time for you to find a new place to work!