Why this accountant gives staff a ‘wellness’ day every second week

Edmund Tadross
Professional services editor
Australian Financial Review

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The leaders at accounting firm CharterNet Advisers are giving the outfit’s 40-strong staff an extra “wellness” day off every fortnight to help them recuperate from the mental stress of the Sydney lockdown.

The move is just one of the initiatives, along with free yoga and exercise classes via Zoom, designed to help staff maintain motivation as they deal with anxious clients and the flood of pandemic-related grant inquiries alongside the usual tax and compliance work.

“Right now the conditions are such that we’re not going into an office. We’re not seeing each other. We’re not having the social interactions we would normally have with our team,” said Saeed Mirzakhani, a partner at the firm.

“We’re also dealing with the competing priorities of research and development grant work, COVID-related grants and regular compliance deadlines. We also have a very, very anxious client base. It just takes its toll. We really needed to work out ways to help our team recuperate.”

Mr Mirzakhani said the expectation was that staff would consider client needs when deciding on the timing of their wellness day.

“During this recent lockdown, we’ve also been mandating one wellness day each fortnight. Take one day and fully switch off. You do need to report back on what you did on your wellness day to the group that you wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise,” he said.

Staff have reported doing everything from cleaning their home, through to going on a walk through their neighbourhood and learning how to paddleboard.

The firm, which has two partners and 40 staff, including eight people based
overseas, will offer the fortnightly wellness day for the duration of the lockdown.

Other companies, including the major consulting firms, also offer extra leave to staff working through the lockdown to help reduce stress.

‘Candidate short’ job market

Mr Mirzakhani said CharterNet, like other accounting firms, had trouble recruiting experienced staff.

“It’s never been harder to secure a candidate. We have mandates out with the recruitment groups we work with, we advertise on social media. It is making us look to alternatives. We’re doing more offshoring than we have ever done – eight of the team are based overseas,” he said.

Samantha Fisher, a recruiter in the accounting sector, said she had never seen such a “candidate short” job market.

“This has been a very unique job market in that it is so candidate short. The
unemployment figures you see on the news are skewed by a couple of sectors suffering due to border closures. Everything else is seeing employment rates higher – meaning there are less available candidates now than before the pandemic began,” she said.

Ms Fisher, a senior consultant at the recruitment firm Charterhouse Partnership, has helped CharterNet Advisers (which is an unrelated business) with recruitment.

“Auditors are the most affected job category. They are always in demand, but the border closures mean the larger firms cannot redeploy their workforces globally. Meaning each territory is forced to go to market to plug the gap,” Ms Fisher said.

Major audit firms have previously reported that it took up to six months to recruit experienced auditors. Now, that pipeline of overseas professionals has been cut by COVID-19-related travel restrictions.

The tight job market means qualified candidates have higher expectations around pay and non-monetary perks “have become an expectation as opposed to a benefit”. Ms Fisher cited other examples of accounting firms paying for staff lunches and offering prizes, including prepaid Visa cards, for high performers.

“The hybrid work from home flexibility is one of the most expected ones now and firms that aren’t offering that are falling behind when competing for candidates. I’ve seen ridiculous salaries with sometimes more than $35k pay increases, senior titles when the candidate is very clearly an intermediate, just to get them on board,” she said.

She warned that higher pay came with higher expectations around performance.

“With the pay rise advice, I’m not sure candidates need tips to get pay rises, and it’s not normally what I encourage. There’s more to a job than just a pay increase so if it’s a salary increase they are looking for and everything else is good in their current role, they should ask their current employer.”

“When the market becomes candidate-short then the need for them to
differentiate themselves and justify salary increases is negated due to demand. My advice to candidates is to think about what happens when the market returns to normal and whether they can deliver workload that justifies the inflated salary.”

“A thing to keep in mind with professional services firms is that when salaries go up, so do expectations. If people think the hours they work are aggressive now, that expectation from the employer will change if they are paid more.”