Righting Retention

Why is retaining talent consistently ranked as one of the greatest management challenges impacting the accounting and finance profession? What really drives the profession's perpetually higher-than-average turnover rates? The 2023 Insight Special Feature, "Righting Retention," aims to answer those questions and more.

Amid a progressively weakening pipeline of new accounting talent, we believe retaining talent is destined to become a more pressing issue than ever before. Throughout summer 2023, we hosted multiple focus groups, conducted personal interviews, and surveyed both current and former Illinois CPA Society members to hear their unique perspectives on the profession’s long-term trouble with turnover.

In soliciting employer feedback, we revealed their views and actions when it comes to retaining accounting and finance talent. In seeking to understand employees’ motivations to voluntarily resign from their roles, we identified the major drivers behind their decisions, including six key factors.

Ultimately, “Righting Retention” uncovers several areas where action can be taken to help improve talent retention and foster discussions that could lead to positive change for the accounting and finance profession.

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A CPA Diversity Report: Uncovering the Barriers to Success

Diversity. Equity. Inclusion. These three words—and the efforts required to realize them—have become increasingly important as demographic and social shifts transform our country. In turn, the actions organizations take across these fronts are coming under more scrutiny than ever before as employees, consumers, and investors increasingly aim to align their individual values with those of the organizations they choose to work for, do business with, and support. The accounting profession isn’t immune to these shifts, yet it has been—and continues to be—primarily a white man’s profession. Why?

Alumni of our annual Mary T. Washington Wylie Internship Preparation Program helped us uncover why some of these diverse young professionals voluntarily leave or consider leaving their employers and, in some cases, the accounting profession.

As we believe what they’re encountering may be happening to many minorities throughout the profession, our 2022 Insight Special Feature shares new research findings and some of the unique, eye-opening—and sometimes troubling—stories from these individuals to shed light on what could be contributing to the persistent disparity in minority representation and advancement in the accounting profession.

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A CPA Pipeline Report: Decoding the Decline

“A stagnating CPA pipeline is a threat. It’s an issue that will only get worse and grow more troubling without action.” We delivered that warning in our 2016 Insight Special Feature, “Pipeline Disruption: The Search for Solutions to the Weakening Supply of CPAs.” Five years later the issue has, in fact, grown worse and more troubling.

Earning the CPA credential has historically been one of the most notable ways to establish a professional identity and exhibit a high level of competence in the accounting profession, yet we are witnessing a nationwide decline in not just new CPAs but also accounting program enrollments. With input from various regional and national stakeholders, we developed a survey targeted toward accounting students, graduates, and professionals under the age of 35—including CPAs and non-CPAs—with the aim of gaining insight into what is truly driving the decline in individuals pursuing the CPA credential and understanding why so many accounting students and young professionals either do not finish the CPA exam or never take it at all.

In this eye-opening 2021 Insight Special Feature, the Illinois CPA Society shares its survey findings, decoding the decline of new CPAs by revealing the real reasons accounting students, graduates, and young professionals are not pursuing the CPA credential like they used to.

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