Balancing the Books and Wellbeing: Prioritising Work-Life Balance in the Chartered Accountancy Sector

In the fast-paced environment of Chartered Accountancy, finding a healthy and maintainable work-life balance can be challenging for both staff and employers. Demanding workloads and deadlines have become a hot topic within the industry and can often create difficulties and stress for staff. Recognising the signs and being equipped to address this imbalance is essential for long-term career success, and overall wellbeing. Within this blog, we will explore the common indicators of a poor work-life balance, potential solutions, and discuss the next steps to take if this balance simply isn’t possible in your current position or firm. Although focused specifically on Chartered Accountancy, many of these insights are applicable across a range of varied and diverse industries.

 

Signs of a Poor Work-Life Balance in Chartered Accountancy

Within the Chartered Accountancy sector, there are many signs of a poor work-life balance that are visible across firms of all sizes, characteristics, structures, and clientele. The prominent signs of this across the industry are:

· Consistently working long hours and overtime, including weekends, holidays, or evenings to meet tight or unreasonable deadlines and demands of clients.

· Extreme levels of stress related to meeting deadlines, and anxiety related to the high and faultless expectations of managers and clients.

· Substituting time with family and friends outside of regular work hours due to heavy workloads and pressures.

· High workloads during traditionally ‘seasonal’ periods becoming a regular occurrence.

· Sacrificing essential rest and leisure time due to heavy workloads and pressure to perform and be at work.

· Line between work and personal life blurring with work overflowing into evenings and always feeling connected to emails and work contacts.

· More severe health issues such as fatigue, sleep deficiency, and mental health concerns related to stress and burnout.

 

Solutions to improve Work-Life Balance within Chartered Accountancy:

If any signs of a negative and unsustainable work-life balance are evident, it’s essential that these are raised with management, and proactive action is taken to put your well-being forefront of any decisions. Working in an unbalanced environment is unsustainable for any worker, no matter how driven or committed they are. Potential solutions include:

· Communicating openly with management and supervisors about unachievable workload concerns and asking if any support or changes can be made.

· Prioritise positive and personal wellness activities outside of regular work hours before any extra shifts or overtime.

· Establish strict personal boundaries between work and personal life by not taking work home with you, removing work emails from personal devices, and setting strict time

restrictions based on your contracted hours. This is critical within the growing number of hybrid and remote workers who often find the line between work and personal time blurring.

· Managing workloads to complete critical tasks and leaving minor tasks to be redistributed or rescheduled.

· Discuss your regular deadlines and workloads with management to evaluate whether these are realistic within your contracted hours.

 

What are my Next Steps? Advice for Employees:

· Be bold, the first step is to initiate conversations with management to assess whether it is realistically possible for you to improve work-life balance to a healthy level.

· Seek internal resources or changes that can be made to improve the environment.

· If this is not suitable, the next step is to begin exploring external opportunities at a new firm that can offer more flexible arrangements, and processes that provide a healthy work-life balance.

· Evaluate whether the overall values of the firm align with your values, and if you can see yourself staying there long-term. For example, large corporate firms may require heftier working hours and less flexible structures due to their incredibly strong market share, extensive resources, and weighty titles, while smaller regional firms traditionally have scope to offer more individualised structures.

· Talk to a recruitment professional; explore the market for a new opportunity that provides you with long-term career progression within a healthy and sustainable environment.

· The competitive and traditionally profit-focused nature of accounting firms can be diverse within the industry. The nature of mid-tier and smaller firms allows them to focus on their staff and build strong relationships that allow staff to thrive.

 

How can I help my staff? Solutions and Strategies for Employers:

Throughout any market, employers significantly influence the overall work-life balance of their staff. By implementing solutions and adapting structures, employers can create a working environment where employees feel valued, supported, and able to maintain a healthy balance between their work and personal life. Potential solutions to improve employee wellbeing and long-term success include:

· Offering flexible work arrangements where reasonable such as flexible hours, remote work options, or compressed work weeks to suit employees’ personal and family commitments.

· Communicating clearly with staff to ensure workloads are realistic and achievable within the provided timeframe and resources.

· Implement positive arrangements such as allowing staff to finish early on Friday’s which is becoming an emerging theme within the CA market.

· Implement strategies that prioritise a positive and collaborative culture such as not allowing staff to do overtime and redistributing any resulting work.

· Recognising and rewarding staff by either additional pay or additional annual leave for doing any reasonable overtime agreed to by both parties.

 

 

Talk to Us:

The competitive and demanding nature of Chartered Accountancy can create difficult and imbalanced environments for staff. Recognising the signs of a poor work-life balance, and seeking potential solutions is critical for long-term career success and longevity within the industry. By exploring and communicating with management on potential solutions, professionals can improve working arrangements for themselves and others around them to create sustainable and enjoyable environments. If suitable solutions can’t be reached, exploring new opportunities in the market may be the best solution for you and your career.

Get in touch with Mackenzie Annett, specialised CA consultant, to explore what this may mean for you: mackenzie@fluidrecruitment.co.nz