How CPA Firms Balance Remote Work & Work-Life Balance

76% of the financial services workforce switched to working remotely during COVID-19. Half of them considered it something they would like to continue with, post the pandemic, and the other half prefers returning to their offices as this working model comes with its own set of challenges, the inability to find a work-life balance being right up there as the #1 challenge.

There is no doubt, the remote working model comes with many positives, but it also has a fair share of setbacks. One of them is the inability to cut off from the job because your office (work station) is just a few paces away. Failing to take a break from work often leaves the employees with burnout and never-ending stress.

This article will discuss how your accounting firm can foster a culture that promotes work-life balance and helps employees with their mental health.

An Innovative Approach to Achieving Work-Life Balance

So, here’s the thing. We are well aware that accounting firms are plagued with an overwhelming workload that insufficient team members handle. Firms need to think beyond the traditional approach to achieving balance.

The key to these efforts is to ensure sufficient team members can handle the work that comes your way. One of the ways this can be done is through accounting outsourcing. Work with a reputed name that offers outsourcing services for CPA firms to outsource time-consuming, commoditized compliance work. This will free up your internal team’s time that not only ensures better work-life balance but also ensures this time can be invested elsewhere in other revenue-generation activities.

How a Work-Life Balance Benefits?

A life with no play and all work promotes nothing but a boring life that nobody aspires to and isn’t inspiring (for self). It isn’t suitable for both your employees and the firm. However, when you take initiatives for driving employee wellness, you can help them find a healthy balance that boosts overall contentment with their job. And when an employee is happy with their job, it translates to improved productivity, and they are more inclined to go the extra mile for the company.

This benefits the firm and employees. It’s a massive benefit for firms trying to grow their clientele because committed employees are often the driving force for any expanding organization.

When CPA firms try to foster balance, the workforce becomes more engaged, but the stress levels also diminish. Even when your employees are working from home, it is normal for negative feelings to overwhelm them if there isn’t the right balance between the personal and the professional.

Stress hinders productivity. It acts as a barrier to employee efficiency, which ultimately leaves them unmotivated and even lowers your firm’s growth rate. A firm’s leadership team must promote a healthy work-life balance. It will help create a culture that values employees’ time rather than praising those who overwork.

And when we use the word ‘balance,’ we don’t mean abandoning work for personal work or recreational activities. We suggest putting faith in your team to get the job done & giving them enough freedom to provide the appropriate amount of time to their personal life, which will do wonders for any firm.

How Accounting Outsourcing Promotes Employees Well-being

The inflow of work in an accounting firm keeps changing. And when the work is too much for the accounting team to handle, it leads to stress, anxiety, and sometimes burnouts amongst teammates. When you opt for outsourced accounting, the workload gets shared with a third-party accounting outsourcing firm, enabling them to have a balanced work life. It helps you take control of the well-being of your accountants.

Improving Work-Life Balance for Remote Employees

We all know the importance and the benefits of an excellent work-life balance, but we also know that this healthy balance is tricky to keep when working in an accounting firm – especially for remote workers. Here are four simple steps to ensure that your employees experience all aspects of life, other than work:

Breaks are Important – Remind them!

Accountants aren’t robots – but they do need to recharge their batteries. Taking breaks might seem impossible when you have deadlines to meet. But failing to take time out for yourself – to eat, drink, and refuel – can eventually lead to an overload of stress.

Encourage your teammates to take proper lunch breaks, short walks, and moments away from their system. You will see vast improvements in their happiness and productivity.

E.g., The tax season is when all hell breaks loose from the work perspective. This is when an extended team of outsourced tax preparers will be a good idea. So, even if your internal team takes a break, they know doing full well that tax return preparation outsourcing has go their back.

Have a work schedule. Stick to it.

Sticking to a work schedule is difficult when working from home. You will think it’s easy to answer just one more email or take one more call before signing off. But before you notice, it’s late-night already, and you haven’t had dinner yet.

It’s essential to have a closing time – a time when you can completely shut yourself from work. Implementing this ‘shut off’ time can give your teammates the confidence to leave out those non-urgent tasks and spend your time relaxing and rejuvenating from the everyday chaos.

If your team has too much on their plates to handle, you can consider outsourced accounting to take off the extra workload and save your employees from that extra pressure of work and the extra work hours – which can be detrimental to their wellbeing.

It’s is also crucial to let your employees know that they don’t have to respond to email when the work hours are over. You have to make it straightforward, so they completely understand the boundaries between personal & professional life.

Introduce fun wellbeing activities

Remote employees may become less active, as they’re not engaged in any physical activity, for example, commuting to the office. Sitting for long hours a day could seriously impact one’s mental and physical wellbeing.

Offer them free gym memberships or online yoga classes and motivate them to have a more active lifestyle accessible to everyone. This will enable them to focus on themselves, away from laptops and phone screens. Promoting the idea of self-care is the perfect solution to reduce the adverse impacts of a strained work-life balance for remote employees.

Check-in on your team regularly

Stress and negative feelings may not be readily visible through a computer monitor. You might think everything is fine when your employees have bad feelings bubbling within themselves.

Hold regular meetings with your employees, talk about work and things outside of work. This way, you can gauge how they feel about their work and look for solutions that benefit everyone. Be open to feedback on the work culture of your firm and explore ways to restore the balance between work and personal.

Conclusion

Having the intent to help your employees have a better work-life is great, but how you enable it makes all the difference. The four points mentioned above are easy to implement – provided you have the time and the capacity to do so. Outsourced accounting is one way to do so. Once you have an extended team on board to take care of the time-consuming compliance tasks, you can better focus on your employees’ upskilling and overall wellbeing.

If you want to know how outsourcing can help you and your team achieve a better work-life balance, call us on +1 551 307 5522 or email [email protected].