accounting salary

accounting salary

The Importance of Competitive Accounting Salaries

1. The Impact of Competitive Salaries on Accounting Professionals

Four years after the financial disasters of 2015, this perception remains valid in the sordid context of a relentless quest for the best profiles by the most dynamic finance and new technology companies.

For many years, the profession of accounting had the reputation of being an absolutely sure value, allowing very bright students to be hired by accounting firms. In addition, many of the best were also concerned about the attractive exit opportunities offered at the end of an internship or externship of one or two years. This does not seem to be a singular perception but had never been supported by statistics or substantive discourses.

This positive feedback suggests that if attractive accounting salaries have a positive impact on accounting education, students, and academics, a weak emphasis on adequate compensation in the profession of accounting has clear negative consequences. The quality of the education proves to be poorer, the level of the students is lower, the high-level candidates embrace other careers, the accounting researchers go to work in other more attractive areas, and the demand is only partially satisfied.

Against this particularly worrying background, this article looks at the fact that a dynamic career structure and the ability to attract the best students and academics are closely related to accounting salaries, which are far from being attractive at the bottom and the middle in the profession of accounting.

During the last few years, the professions of accounting and finance have experienced exponential growth, and this is expected to continue in the near future. The profession of accounting, in particular, has gained popularity following a series of financial scandals in 2015 affecting giants such as Toshiba, Siemens, and mostly Volkswagen. These events have come to highlight the importance of accounting in the business world. Despite this surge in popularity, accounting education is generally struggling to keep up with the increasing demand. This is particularly difficult in French and Portuguese-speaking countries where academic programs are years behind their English-speaking homogeneous counterparts.

2. Attracting and Retaining Top Accounting Talent

Lately, top performers, who frequently get cold calls, turn into the employees who are the most important staff recruited by the firm because they are critical for association strength. High-performing employees concentrate on both obtaining and keeping clients long-term, rather than just bookkeeping their employer’s work hours or asking about their holiday. Prospective employees who are not capable of the performance degrees above should preferably be sidelined by firms who likewise value association improvements long-term. Without top performers, a firm interferes with its skill to thrive in business development, maintain and develop clients through advisory services, refresh the firm with actionable ideas, make and preserve top partners and staff, be an interesting corporate partner, and develop in the most recent communication and technical skills. Firms ought to place supportive resources in the firm and every area of responsibility.

A firm with the right people is often said to have a higher value, a powerful balance sheet, and the ability to command higher fees and clients. Hire the best people who surpass the firm’s core values, and the firm’s success is rocket-fueled forward. Succeed in getting these people to stay with the firm, and the firm’s profitability and leadership reputation are further advanced still. The result is high-end solutions for clients, longevity and stability of profitability for the firm, a team with strong leaders of the future for the firm, and a long-term remarkable client experience. Clients understand and respond favorably to the highest level of support from firms. Conversely, a firm with employees who differ from its core values causes equal opposite challenges for the firm and for the client experience. When the firm loses top-quality candidates or current employees to other firms, the firm is not best positioned to find the best person for client service.

3. The Role of Salary in Employee Motivation and Productivity

Employee turnover has direct cost implications and negative consequences on organizational effectiveness. Turnover increases operating costs due to the direct and indirect costs associated with hiring new staff. Direct costs include advertising, examination fees, and sign-on bonus. While the company invests time and resources in hiring new staff to replace the previous incumbents, the activities allocated to the “replacement” employees are often passively held until the new hire is in place. Indirect costs attributed to hiring new personnel include decreased productivity in remaining employees, and disruption to operations associated with the loss of tacit knowledge. Goal setting, or target setting, is a key strategy for aligning employee efforts with corporate strategy implementations. Efficient performance management system, which links the strategic goals of the firm to the success of the workforce, involves providing employees with a challenging task that enables both with specific personal and professional development, and the growth of the business as an overarching goal.

The role of salary in employee motivation has been a time-honored topic in management science. Research largely supports the hypothesis that individuals take different jobs according to their perceptions of the value that the role provides. Higher salaries signal higher rewards, hence increasing employee satisfaction and commitment. Other than commitment, higher salaries also lead to increased performance. Higher non-experience-based pay is often related to activities that aim to increase employee productivity such as effort, performance level, or motivation. The incentive and organizational justice theory includes behavior aspect of the employees. The relationship between salary and performance also stresses the conduct of how employees behave and attribute justice to the perception of how fair they are treated. The attractiveness of the incentive system – how bonus structures motivate, reward, and retain employees – is key for its sustainability.

4. The Link Between Competitive Salaries and Organizational Success

The result is a situation where real talent is in experienced and skilled professionals that can make an immediate impact. Firms having the ability to attract the best talent can offer high service levels, decrease response times, deliver assurance services of higher quality, and elevate the technical level of their reflexive counsel. Skilled accounting professionals are also able to facilitate better decision making at all business levels, offering businesses a good return on their staffing investment. Another benefit of offering accounting professionals competitive salaries is their propensity to remain with the firm. Skilled accountants who have long tenure at firms typically grow revenues faster and support organizational knowledge. High levels of employee turnover are expensive and can create distractions, dissatisfactions, and quality problems.

Competitive salaries are critical to attracting and retaining top talent at all levels of organizations. Finding the right employees with accounting skills is especially tough due to a severe shortage of accounting talent. In the field of accounting, a profession that’s growing in size due to global businesses and volatility in accounting standards, the need is even more pronounced. Companies can support their efforts to find the best and brightest accountants by offering attractive, competitive wages and salaries. Although a market flooded with accounting professionals may seem to indicate that there is a great deal of talent available, the problem is actually a lack of qualified personnel. With emerging changes in financial standards, the need for high-quality talent is especially acute.

5. Strategies for Ensuring Competitive Accounting Salaries

While salaries are important in attracting and retaining staff, it is important for employees to see the hidden value in their salaries to prevent the employees from feeling they are underpaid. Managers should recognize the contributions of staff members and consider contributions toward promotions. Employees need to evaluate their salary by breaking down their salary into the parts that are not base or annual salary. It’s one thing for an employee to get the highest possible salary and be happy, but without the right mix of benefits, even a high salary may result in employees feeling underpaid.

When you are evaluating your current accounting salaries, knowing the location and seeing the comparisons will help you create and implement a competitive salary. There are 5 strategies for ensuring competitive accounting salaries: evaluate your salaries and benefits, regularly keep track of salary statistics and issues, get executive and employee buy-in, develop salary policies and salary increase criteria, and develop competitive total benefit strategies. Finally, some employers may be put off by a higher salary but offering the potential of earning a higher salary based on achievement may attract a higher caliber of employee.

Accounting salaries are competitive in the market. The importance of having competitive salaries is essential in retaining accounting personnel. Competitive salaries are important to be an attractive and retain experienced accounting personnel.