The National Pipeline Advisory Group’s recommendations cover a wide range of ways to attract more people to the profession, and NPAG facilitator and ConvergenceCoaching co-founder Jennifer Wilson walks us through what everyone can do to bring in the next generation. If you’re interested in helping, you can take the Pipeline Pledge here.
Transcription:
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio for the authoritative record.
Dan Hood (00:03):
Welcome to On the Air with Accounting Today. I’m Dan Hood. We all know that the profession is suffering from serious problems with its pipeline of new accountants, but how many of us are actually doing anything about it? Well, one group that is, is the National Pipeline Advisory Group, which recently released a weighty report full of recommendations on how to start bringing folks into accounting in greater numbers and also to keep them there once we get them here to talk about all that is Jennifer Wilson, she’s the co-founder of ConvergenceCoaching and for our discussion today, perhaps more importantly, the facilitator of the National Pipeline Advisory Group and all the work they’ve done over the past, I want to say 18 months, is that right?
Jennifer Wilson (00:35):
It’s more like 10 or 11 months. July of last year. Almost a year. Rolling into a year.
Dan Hood (00:40):
Gotcha. But a good long time and a lot of effort I know has gone into this. For those who aren’t familiar with it, maybe you can give us a quick explanation of the group, where it came from, what its task was and all that sort of stuff.
Jennifer Wilson (00:51):
Great. Love to, and thank you for covering this, Dan. Did you just say a waking report? Waking WA A-K-I-N-G.
Dan Hood (00:58):
I didn’t — I said “weighty,” but waking works just as well. Like it’s waking people up.
Jennifer Wilson (01:04):
Okay, good. Well, yes, that was the intention to wake us all up. The National Pipeline Advisory Group was formed really out of last Maze, A-I-C-P-A council. There was a resolution that was issued to study the pipeline issue in a data-driven manner to identify strategies and create a strategic plan to address the talent pipeline decline. So that’s how the group was formed. 22 stakeholders were invited and I was invited to be the independent facilitator for those stakeholders. I don’t think any of us knew what we were saying yes to. I think we all cared deeply about the talent pipeline, but we had no idea how wide and how deep our work would be, and I’ve been really excited about these 22 people and their perspectives all the way along. That’s probably the biggest blessing in the entire project for me. I did not know many of them.
(02:04):
I was a little worried that we would all come in with tremendous bias and I would spend a lot of time refereeing arguments and fights and that we wouldn’t coalesce and that we wouldn’t unify and that we couldn’t get traction. Those were my fears. They were completely unfounded because these people, we watched the 17 minute Adam Grant, TED talk before we came together in our first meeting last July, and it’s about entrenched thinking from his book, think again, but it’s this short 17 minutes. Hey, don’t get stuck. Don’t think you already know. And everybody watched it and we all sort of coughed up our biases and admitted our perspectives and our concerns for that first meeting and everybody was so honest and so cool and it’s been the biggest to work with those people.
Dan Hood (03:03):
I was going to ask what surprised you most about the process? It sounds like that might’ve been one of your big surprises was like, this is actually more fun than I thought it would be. Yes. Was there other stuff that surprised you about it?
Jennifer Wilson (03:15):
Well, the people, but also, yes, for sure, Dan. We were, so one of the things we had to do was to say, Hey, we all have opinions about what’s causing the talent crisis, but we have to put those opinions to the side and go learn from data and from studies and from inputs. And so we went and we started with maybe 17 different studies. We tried to have our research that we read, the research already completed by some other third parties. We tried to have all of that research be post pandemic because we kind of viewed the talent landscape pre pandemic and post pandemic to be majorly different. And so I was surprised by how much fantastic research there was and how much there was to learn and how much consistency there were in the insights. Most of the studies, if not all focused on the hurdles, the barriers, the problems later. We did research independently this year, this calendar year as a group on testing solutions. We didn’t ask about barriers anymore because there was just so much good stuff on the barriers, but we did also get 1600 inputs on the barriers through focus groups and feedback sessions last fall. And so one of the big surprises was how consistent the data was, how resounding the themes were, which is sort of comforting, but unfortunately it wasn’t like one or two things that we could quickly flip a light switch and solve.
Dan Hood (04:48):
It’s interesting because I’ve talked to you about this and I’ve seen presentations with you and other members of the group and talked to them. We had Lexi Kessler and Sue coff on the podcast sort in mid process about six months or so to describe where you were going. And one of the fascinating things is everyone really emphasizes the data-driven approach almost to the extent of like, wow, when we actually looked at this data, suddenly we realized we all had our own independent opinions and our own thoughts. And it sounds like everybody sort of went, oh wow. Everyone had a moment where they’re like, wow, I’m wrong because the data shows me I’m wrong. When you actually look at the numbers as opposed to going with your entrenched thinking or the thing you just assume is the problem, you suddenly realize, wow, it’s a lot bigger and a lot broader, and I’m probably a little bit wrong and all these things that I never thought of are going to have to be brought into it. It was really fascinating, this religious fervor almost around the data-driven approach. Like wow, when we actually looked at the data, it really changed everything.
Jennifer Wilson (05:47):
Well, it’s the truth. And it’s not that the things we maybe thought would be at cause or would drive change that we came in wrong. I’m not sure that we were wrong. I think we were myopic or too narrow. Each of us had our perspective. One of the cool things about the stakeholder group was that it included academics, it included regulators, it included verbs of all sizes, finance department folks, state society executives, consultants to the profession. And so from that angle, we all probably had a right answer. It just was a tiny answer in comparison to the ocean of factors that are impacting us. And those factors are not just profession specific, they’re market specific. And we really had to study the market and not just where it is right now, but where it’s headed, where the United States is headed, where things are happening globally, what’s happening in other professions.
(06:50):
I mean, we really had to look wide and then go narrow into the accounting profession and look outside of our individual scope. And that was one of the things that was so wonderful. I know it was a blessing to everybody on it, was that we, through this study, we all developed this big sense of empathy for each other’s positions and for folks other than us. And so when we talk about the themes in this report, I always tell people, you’re not going to fall off your chair. They’re not going to blow your mind. The big themes because we pretty much all could list a couple of them before we did this work because we had these perspectives. But we might not have listed all six together and we might not have realized how critical they are to one another, how interdependent and how difficult it’s going to be to drive change if we just focus on one.
Dan Hood (07:45):
Right. Well, I keep thinking of it’s the blind men describing the elephant, right? Everyone’s got a little piece of it, but you need to step back and get everybody’s description together to get the full thing. You mentioned the six recommendations and I’ve got some questions beyond that, but maybe this is a good time maybe to if you can just outline those for the listeners.
Jennifer Wilson (08:05):
Sure. So
Dan Hood (08:05):
Are the big themes I should
Jennifer Wilson (08:06):
Say. Yeah, the big themes, the six big themes, and these are what I’m going to call both the hurdles and also the areas where we focused our solutions in the strategic plan. First is tell a better story. And nobody’s ever shocked by that. But some people sort of when they hear it, they think, yes. National ed campaign, it tease. And I say we could have a famous superstar actor in a tux with a briefcase, a rappel in to a jungle to do an audit, forensic audit of some kind. We could have the coolest ads in the world for accounting, but it won’t undo the story that we’re telling at our kitchen tables and the story that we’re inside our firms about the worst busy season in 34 years. And the challenge and how hard it is, we wear the red badge of courage about how hard we work and how overwhelmed we are.
(09:10):
And that story permeates and it really has made its way through social media, through Reddit and Glassdoor and fishbowl to middle schoolers and high schoolers and their parents. And it’s impacting us. And what we haven’t done is focus on all the cool stuff in the story, the difference we make for clients, the technology forward nature of our profession, and really how diverse it is, how many pathways there are, how you don’t have to just go into one discipline inside public accounting and that’s it. That’s your whole life. You have all these options. I’m in public accounting, I’m not doing accounting. You’re in public accounting for crying out loud. You’re not doing accounting either. So there’s all these interesting things that we just haven’t done a great job of amplifying, and we’re not necessarily reaching people early enough with the story to affect their decision. So that’s one tell a better story.
(10:07):
The second is enhance the college experience. Make it more engaging. Out of nine business majors, one chooses an accounting major, but all nine in most instances are exposed to the principles of accounting course. And they weren’t. Eight of ’em went uhuh. And there’s something about that that we probably should evaluate and make that a more engaging, gamified, simulated entrepreneurial course perhaps. And the AAA who really have done a great job of shepherding and guiding academics across this country, they are at work with a working group studying and evaluating how to best influence the principles of accounting course. But there’s a whole bunch of other recommendations in that too that include getting us into colleges and universities to talk to students about what our careers have been in accounting, see if we need to help and mentor anybody, that sort of thing. So there’s a bunch of recommendations in that reduced the time and cost of education.
(11:20):
We definitely came into this project with allowed external kind of drumbeat happening in the marketplace saying, Hey, study and change 150 hours, the additional 30 hours and a lot of opinions around that. We studied the heck out of it and did find that additional education, the additional 30 hours, the time and the cost was a barrier. It was a hurdle, it was creating issues. And so we studied the heck out of that. And we can talk more about that in a second if you’d like. We also really saw that folks could use more support taking the CPA exam. So we have a solution theme around CPA exam support at the employer level really, but it’s not totally employer only. There’s other things around it, but the biggest issue is life gets in the way. They need to get to work and they need to, they’re buying homes and getting married and having children and man studying for that CPA exam is tough, especially with the significant work volumes, perhaps overwhelming work volumes and the lack of employer support to schedule enough time to study and that sort of stuff.
(12:39):
So that’s a CPA exam recommendation. The next one is probably not going to surprise anybody, and we have to make the employer experience the employee experience at one to five years more engaging, stickier, more inviting, and then really more inclusive. Cause people to stay, have them go out there and go to work in their accounting profession and say, man, I like this and I recommend it to others and I want to continue to grow here. And right now we are not having that sort of engagement at the one to five year point. We’re have a lot of unrest, let’s say, and many, many firms and finance departments will say, man, we’re missing that middle level of experience. It’s because we get kids, young people, three to five years or so, and they say, I got to get out of this. And so if we want people to grow here with us, we’ve got to address a number of employer solutions, if you will.
(13:41):
And the last, which I hate putting last, but I want to drag it above and underneath all the other solutions and thread it all the way through a loom or a weaving of some kind. We have to increase the number of underrepresented minorities that are attracted to our profession that come and belong and stay and help us grow this profession together. Today, the percentage of underrepresented minorities does not match that of the US population. Various minority groups do not match. We are not at least even to, I’d be wonderful if we were greater than in some of these, but we are not.
Dan Hood (14:21):
We’re nowhere near. Yeah, those numbers
Jennifer Wilson (14:22):
Are. No, that’s right. So those are the six, Dan.
Dan Hood (14:28):
Well, it’s funny as you list those, right? They’re all, as you say, not no breeders, right? Because you’ve linked them all together and combined them and thought through them. But they’re all things that a year ago people could have said, well, this could be one of the, this could be a solution. They were probably everybody’s favorite, some person’s favorite solution like you said, and they just needed to realize that the other five are equally important, right? They’re all play a major role. I just had to clarify this for myself. The first time I heard you talk about the AAA, I was like, it’s the American Accounting Association. It’s not the American Automobile Association. Hopefully I’m not the only one who got confused by hearing AAA thinking, wait, no, I don’t understand. But —
Jennifer Wilson (15:08):
Yeah, they’re both awesome. But for sure we’re talking about the American Accounting Association.
Dan Hood (15:11):
— I’m not going to call the American Accounting Association when I’m stuck on the side of the road, but nor am I going to call the American Automobile Association one eight to fix that principles of accounting class. So it seems like I will say this about a lot of the academic experience it seems like, and actually the early firm experience, you talk about that importance of that first one to five years, it seems like there was a lot of weeding out. The whole thing was like, it was a lot about weeding people out who aren’t going to like accounting, let’s make sure they get out of there faster as opposed to making a point of saying, let’s keep as many of these people engaged and interested as we can. In part because there were so many, used to be so many more young accountants coming in, you could afford to say the first five years of your experience will be grunt work and drudge work and unhappy and unpleasant because we only need a few of you to stick around to be partners and the rest of you’re going to go into corporate accounting anyways.
(15:57):
So it’s interesting, you talked about the 150 hour rules that was, for instance, a lot of states are looking at can they change those rules or add different pathways to getting to a level of experience that would match 150 hours, that sort of thing. So it was a bit of a hot flashpoint must’ve been going in. Are there other a thorny issues that you had to work through or maybe you could tell us more about how you worked through the 150 hour issue and the different perspectives that people brought to that because there were people equally strong on, we got to keep it in part in big part because of mobility issues, but then not equally people who were like, I know we’ve heard from people like, nope, kind of get rid of it. So
Jennifer Wilson (16:39):
Yes, so let’s talk about that. But yes, there were other thorny things. We can get to that too if you’d like to. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t in the room back when we came to 150 hours, so I can’t represent the story behind that. But I will tell you that one of the things that additional education represents is additional maturing time. Additional study in some states, they do prescribe that 30 hours not all are prescribed and some kind of one of the detractors is that they’re not prescribed and that it could be somewhat hollow or not that educational. But the thought was that this would elevate the quality of our people, elevate the quality of our output. We’re in the public protection business when we’re talking about licensing. We are trying to protect the public and we are trying to ensure quality. That’s really critical.
(17:42):
And so at no time during our conversations, were we unaware of that? Yes. We also, the resolution called for us to do our best to preserve mobility. And mobility is a byproduct of the system, the consistent system that we have. So the 150 hours is really about quality and about maturity. And then if everybody was embracing it, we had a unified or a pretty consistent, substantially equivalent system that allowed us to have this mobility which allows people to practice without notice, without fees across state lines. And that’s pretty crucial. And anybody who knows me knows that I’ve been a big remote work and anytime, anywhere, work person forever. And in order to be able to have a business model that has multiple offices or multiple people in multiple states and clients across states, that mobility privilege, pretty important. And so that was on sort of the, let’s try to preserve the current system side.
(18:54):
On the other side was hey, that additional cost and time of education is presenting a barrier. There were many studies that showed that some who did not choose a career in accounting or a major in accounting noted that either time or cost or both of that additional education as one of their reasons. And it wasn’t the only reason, and it wasn’t always the top reason. I don’t even know if it was ever the top reason, but it was definitely in the top reasons. And so we noted that it also had a higher impact, appeared to have higher impact based on the data to underrepresented minority groups, which is not lost upon us when that’s one of our key themes and goals. We have to pay attention to that. So what we did was we formed this substantial equivalency working group outside within the National Pipeline Advisory Group, and it was chaired by Shelly Weir who is the CEO of the Florida Institute.
(19:56):
And it was populated with eight folks in total that were NPAC members. Plus I attended and we had good legal support. We engaged with Gibson Dunn, which is a law firm, and they did a bunch of study for us and the poor guys, they did a whole bunch of study and gave us a lot of good data. And then of course we asked a million questions and they went back and had to teach us, but also sometimes study different permutations and things. And we were trying to understand and really get how the model of substantial equivalency and mobility works and which states require what. And it’s very complicated and complex and way too much for you and I in this podcast to get into, and I certainly am not the expert on this, but I did gain a lot of understanding and with every little bit of learning, it was increasingly complex, increasingly if then sort of thing.
(21:01):
But what we did was we kept saying, what are we working toward? What is important here? We want to increase the number of people who choose this profession. And really our whole mission at NPAC was to increase the number of people who choose accounting as a career, which would increase the number who go on to be licensed. So while this was a really important and hot issue in the public marketplace and we treated it as important and put a lot of resources into it, it wasn’t the only thing that we were working on because frankly, not everybody goes on to be licensed and we wanted to make sure we had things to attract people to accounting. But this licensing issue, really where we were focused was how can we reduce the cost and time of education and how can we not impact quality while doing it?
(21:48):
We talked to other professions. We had a wonderful presentation by Michael Armstrong of ncarb, the architects regulator, if you will, and he shared tremendous insights about how they had been modernizing their license. And we learned a ton from him. We studied what the legal profession was doing. We read about others as well. Teaching is very interesting. Education, healthcare is very interesting. There’s a lot of change happening in various professions that we were paying attention to. And we started to tried to learn about how were people dealing with this now were there any firms that were addressing it or finance departments? What about universities? And so one of the surprises you had asked me, what are some surprises? Another one was, I didn’t realize what is happening now in this country to help support people who are getting that additional 30 hours other than just, Hey, go to school, let us know when you have it done and then we’ll start your CPA exam study process.
(22:53):
I just thought that was how it was being done. But right now, there are some low cost education options. We call these the now options and like ELE, which you have talked about or written about with Tulane, the A-I-C-P-A program. Florida Institute has a program writer, university has a program. There are a number of universities out there trying to provide low cost education for that last 30 hours to take the cost outright this minute. Now that’s traditional education still. You have to take the time to take it. It shows up on your transcript, but it’s not as expensive maybe as the traditional education path. Some firms are providing experiential learning and New Jersey seems to be a hotbed for this. There are a number of firms there that are doing some cool experiential learning things with universities in concert with universities, and that’s up on the transcript for the students.
(23:47):
And that is all mobile and substantially equivalent. And it’s getting in there 30 hours at a either reduced cost or in the case of experiential learning, I get the learning while I’m getting paid. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah, I’m all on the job. And so that reduces time and cost. And so we love that experiential learning. So we started digging into that more and that led us to the near options. And the near option or near recommendation of the NPA related to this is that we begin to approach experiential learning at the employer level finance department or firm. And that we don’t necessarily require it to be on the transcript and that the employers could provide this experiential learning. And of course it would have to be prescribed and it would have to be in some way, very simply, I’m going to use the word, there’d have to be some sort of oversight, a very simple checkoff process that still ensure quality but wasn’t so onerous that it became this very difficult regulation process for employers and more like a CPE kind of a thing.
(25:05):
Yeah, it could be CPE, it could be internships, but it has to be prescribed. What are the outcomes? What are the skills? What are the new competencies, new abilities that the student would have, the candidate if you will, gets out of that program? And that we would agree that we were all as employers trying to get those skills across in that last 30 hours of experiential learning that was not on the transcript, reducing the cost to the students. Certainly again, experiential, reducing the time to the student because it’s happening at work. But if there are costs and there are time impacts, it’s to the employer. And so that’s just something really important to pay attention to. The employer delivers this. Now, I’ve had some people say to me, Hey, as an employer, we don’t have the bandwidth for that. And we’ve been talking about finding ways to, and we’re not the implementation body at impact, but we can see where there could be experiential learning in a box for these competencies supplied by various providers and universities could still be involved, but also more commercial vendors, potentially other ways of getting a decently turnkey process.
(26:23):
And some of that, like internships let’s say, or CPE or whatever it might be, are already being delivered by the employer. It would just need to be in this prescribed competency set. And so we don’t see it as a big onerous ask of the employer. And we also do see it as scalable. It’s not just a big employer thing. I think small employers could supply this as well, and it has to be created yet Dan, but it isn’t going to take a long time to create. There are states that already prescribed that’s already there are competencies that we know that we need to get across to young people today like AI as a, for instance, a simple for instance, but increase relational and communication skills. Because as we automate more and we do less processing, we’re going to have more conversations with people. I get deeper and be more advisory, and there’s some cool stuff we could put into that 30 hours.
(27:18):
So anyway, that’s the near option. And then the next option is this idea of creating competency framework. A competency framework across all of the accounting, education and curriculum that said, here are the skills and abilities and the knowledge that we are trying to impart through the entire curriculum. And we don’t care how you get them, but you check off on those competencies and you can go on to become licensed. And that’s the competency focused model. And that model in particular allows perhaps people that have been in our profession for quite some time who may not go back to school ever. They could either get either in the near option or the next option, a path, a licensure. They may not even yet have a bachelor’s, but they’ve been in doing the work and really learning and growing and super competent, but not really with the traditional path, let’s say transcript to prove it.
(28:29):
And that’s a further out option. One thing to put in here, and I hate to tell too big a story here, it’s too late for that I’m sure. But one of the things we learned as we studied the marketplace is that there were a number of universities testing a 90 hour bachelor’s degree. There was a pilot of this 90 hour bachelor’s happening starting last summer. And so we started reading about it and learning about it. And then Indiana passed a law requiring universities to offer a major, one major at 90 hours and 90 hours is not a compressed, they go to school year round and all that stuff. It’s a less hours bachelor’s degree. They remove electives and that sort of thing. And so we kept thinking to ourselves, wow, whatever happens in this marketplace, we hope nobody would hard code the number of hours required.
(29:31):
And for those of us, like you and me, we know that there’s a big conversation in business in general. Why focus on analysts? Why focus on inputs? Why would we focus on that instead of results, deliverables, outputs, competency, skills, abilities. So a big light bulb went off over our heads in the substantial equivalency working group and we said, man, we’re not going to take a position on ours here because ours is a mistake. And if we were to say one 50 or one 20 and everybody codes that in or it’s already coded in, what happens when the bachelor’s goes to 90? Now a whole nother set of rule changes has to happen. And why would we focus on inputs instead of outputs? And so the suggestions that we put forward, our recommendations are really based on trying to create a higher quality output, trying to futureproof our license, but also futureproof the talent. Dan, we want to futureproof the people. We want them to be elevated and skill and all of these ideas that we have still require taking the CPA exam. That’s sort of the capstone or the final piece for licensure.
Dan Hood (30:47):
There is, as you say, a tremendous amount to unpack. And we don’t have much time left. We have to take a quick break and then I’m going to come back and touch on it. I want you to give out some assignments when we come back. So let’s take a couple of seconds. Alright, and we’re back. We’re talking with Jen Wilson of Convergence Coaching. And again, for this conversation, perhaps more importantly, the National Pipeline Advisory Group, talking about all the different things that went into those discussions and the recommendations that came out of it. As I said, it’s something like, it’s a weighty and waking report. It’s something like 90 pages, right? It’s pretty sizable. There’s a lot of different pieces to it. You’ve outlined the six big themes, but each one of those has a bunch of different things underneath them. As I said, I want you to hand out some assignments. You talked a lot about employers and employer’s role in all this. And while everyone has a role to play, we talked about the A and what they’re doing for curriculums and stuff like that, but there was a lot of recommendations for employers. I don’t want to say that they’re bearing the entire burden of it not, but they’re certainly bearing a lot of it. And I wonder if you can give some of the things that employers should start thinking about doing to help ease the pipeline problem.
Jennifer Wilson (32:00):
Happy to do that first, let me just say, while it may sound like sad or employers, they have to bear shoulder. A lot of this employers really have most of the benefit of a growing talent pipeline and all the problems of a shrinking pipeline. So I don’t feel too sad having to say, Hey employers, let’s work together and make this happen. Employers can certainly support telling a better story. They can certainly support CPA exam by sending their people into middle schools and high schools and colleges by building CPA exam groups to shepherd their exam candidates that we have so many wonderful examples of first doing this that are getting high pass rates, high numbers of candidates through the system, really building momentum and excitement. And so there’s a bunch of those kinds of things. But there’s also employer support to the underrepresented minority groups really focusing on getting involved in HBCUs and other minority centered universities, colleges and community colleges and getting out there on campus to provide support and also recruit, creating an environment of inclusion and belonging and really learning about bias and learning about microaggressions and learning about the things that are going to be necessary to create this inclusive, truly minority group ready and embracing environment.
(33:31):
But also employers. I hate to take us down this path. This one always gets me a little bit of a cringe from some employers. We have to increase starting salaries folks, boy, are we under where we need to be? We are one of the lowest paying starting salaries in business majors. So we are below actuarial, we are below economics, we are below finance for starting salary. So why would somebody put the investment in to get an accounting degree and then come out of school and take less money than they could get from these other business majors? So it isn’t just the introductory course or our complaining at the kitchen table. It’s the money too. And we do have to
Dan Hood (34:14):
And not a little bit of money. I mean, I remember at some point we talked about data driven. I remember seeing someone, I think it was Perry Millon posting a thing that said the average business major gets a starting salary of like 62,000. And the average starting salary for an accountant was like 52,000. That’s when you’re 21 years old and coming out of school. And that’s a 10 grand difference. A 20% difference. It’s
Jennifer Wilson (34:36):
Huge. Yes.
Dan Hood (34:37):
Sorry. I always think of those numbers. I remember seeing them and just my eyes bugging out going, it’s that bad. I had no idea.
Jennifer Wilson (34:43):
And our numbers may be a little different, but they are that bad. So don’t worry that the gap is why, and it’s worse, Dan, because inflation from 2017 to 2022 was roughly 19.8%. Accounting salaries only increased 16%. And so a lot of times, so think of that we were already under and then we lost ground against it eroding
Dan Hood (35:05):
Away.
Jennifer Wilson (35:06):
Oh my goodness. And a lot of firms are like, well, Jen, why are you talking about this? We increased salaries 8% last year and 10% the year before. And I say, yes, but you’re not keeping up with inflation. And we haven’t stepped our starting salaries up to the level of the other business majors. We have to be competitive. And a lot of firms, they think and finance departments we’re competitive with our normal competitors in the profession. Guess what? That’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about the profession getting competitive with the other competing professions in business. And so that’s got that
Dan Hood (35:43):
Tech and finance.
Jennifer Wilson (35:44):
Yes, for sure. Tech, finance, actuarial. I mean, I was on a bus not too long ago with an association group and a woman was there with her daughter. She brought her along to her. We were going to go visit a memorial or a monument of some kind. And I talked to the daughter and she said, yes, I’m finishing my degree. And I was like, great, what are you studying? She said, well, I was going to go into accounting, but I found out I could make more with actuarial, so that’s what I’m doing. And her mom and I looked at each other and her mom was like, sorry, I tried. But what do you say to that? I mean, it’s a really challenging discussion. So we are encouraging all employers to undertake a salary study and evaluate how your entry level salaries compete not to others in the profession, but outside and recognize many think, oh my goodness, this will cause a ripple of increased salaries all the way up to partner.
(36:41):
We don’t think so. I can’t promise you this and I haven’t done each individual employer study, but there’s a pretty good jump that happens between senior supervisor and manager. Decent sized goals is met because mid-year career salaries are solid folks. And by the way, we don’t talk about that and we don’t publish salary transparency, and we don’t pound our chest about how much money partners and CFOs can make. And I’m not saying the whole profession and all people hinge upon money. It’s not the primary motivator for many, but if you’re way under market, it doesn’t make sense. So both increasing, starting salaries, increasing salary transparency, and really letting people know what the potential is, all those things will help as well.
Dan Hood (37:29):
Excellent. Just so the employers don’t go away feeling overly burdened, as you say, they’re going to get the biggest benefit of ’em. It’s going to solve one of their biggest problem, but there’s also, there’s recommendations. You have tasks for just accountants in general, every individual member of the profession. Can you give us some of the things, the homework they should be doing? Sure. I’m joking when I present it this way. This is something everybody, the profession should want to do to support the future of this profession. It is very much a thing that works really only works if you’ve got young people coming in all the time. Every profession is that way.
Jennifer Wilson (38:05):
That’s right, Dan. And we have interesting national demographic problems that make it that we need to actually recruit more than our fair share. It’s not that we just want to get back to a level that we used to be at. We’ve got to really recognize that we need to attract more than our fair share. So one of the big ahas, you asked about surprises and ahas. I realized early on that everybody sort of had some entity or body or some group that they wanted to solve this pipeline problem. Nah. And all of these integrated solutions, they’re all of us working together. But also we don’t have to wait for any firm association, finance department, university, or a regulator to solve our problem. We can all individually, 100% responsibly get out there and individually take on some things. And that could include visiting a middle school or high school, visiting a college and sharing a better story at your kitchen table, paying more attention to what you’re saying, what you’re tweeting, what you’re doing out there in the marketplace, looking around at your firm or finance department for those who could be good CPA exam candidates and talking to them about the benefits of getting licensed, but also offering them support.
(39:24):
It’s one thing to sort of say, Hey, you should do this. And another to say, how can I help you do this? And those are just some of the things being more inclusive in general as an employer, going out and stepping outside of your pile of work and talking to the team and acting as a shepherd and a supporter for all the people who come into your firm or finance department being more inclusive. So there’s just so many things we individually could do. We have this thing in the National Pipeline Advisory Group called the Pipeline Pledge, and we really want people to take this pledge, and Dan, hopefully you’ll provide information in the show notes on this. People can sign up. The signup is really just a promise. We’re trying to see how many people we can get to promise. I’m hoping for thousands, and it’s just, I’m going to do two things in the next seven, eight months. I’m going to get out there and do two things and you define the two things. We have ideas on the website, certainly to seed your thinking, but we’re not trying to boss you on this or prescribe your homework. But we are hoping every single person will get out there and make some noise, really talk about this profession and how great it is and see who you can help come along into accounting.
Dan Hood (40:42):
Very cool. We will definitely make the link to the pipeline pledge available both on the landing page and in the notes, so everyone will be able to take that. As you say, it’s not just that there’s a dozen different solutions to it. It’s going to take thousands and thousands of people, everybody working together and individually to solve it. Alright. As I said, we could spend three or 400 days talking about this because there’s a lot going on and a lot of different pieces in the report, which I would encourage people to take a look at, but for now, I’m afraid we’re going to have to cut it short. Jen Wilson, thank you so much for joining us and clueing us into all of this.
Jennifer Wilson (41:17):
Thank you for covering it, Dan, and thanks for inviting me and thanks everybody for listening. Let’s do something together on this
Dan Hood (41:26):
Episode of On The Air was produced by Accounting Today with audio production by Adnan Khan. Ready to review us on your favorite podcast platform and see the rest of our content on accounting today.com. Thanks again to our guest and thank you for listening.
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