Today’s rapid shifts within the business world have made company culture a frequent buzz topic. But culture is far from a buzzworthy trend. As accounting, finance and other industries face pipeline challenges, culture will likely be at the forefront of the conversation.
What is a company culture, how do you manage it and, as a leader, how do you gain a better grasp on what your firm or organization’s culture is?
We talked to Mary Kay Prasco, CPA, CFF, principal of Prasco & Associates in Crown Point, and Shish Cherian, people operations manager at Donovan CPAs in Indianapolis, for insight into how these firms practice cultural management day-to-day.
A top-down approach to firm culture
In its formal form, culture is often represented by an organization’s mission and values — but these words on a page don’t mean anything unless there is daily action bringing them to life.
How are employees treated? How are clients treated? What shows up as priority areas across the organization?
Prasco views culture as a top-down creation. For her, this means leading her small firm with a culture of trust and respect.
“If you’re working for someone who trusts you, and you feel comfortable, you're going to get the work done and you're going to work harder because they've allowed you to have that ability and flexibility,” she said.
“I don't expect anyone to do anything I wouldn't do. No job is too small, and I try to instill in my people that we’re all equal here even though we have different titles.”
She also has an egalitarian approach to running the office. “I don't expect anyone in here to do anything I wouldn't do,” she said. This applies even when it comes to taking out the trash. “There’s no job too small, and I try to instill in my people that we’re all equal here even though we have different titles.”
So far, it’s been a success; most of her team has been with her since the firm’s founding in 2009.
A team-first approach
Donovan CPA shares the philosophy that culture and team nurturing leads to greater success. In revamping their brand mission and values last year, they made it team-centric instead of client service focused.
“We find flipping that from a firm standpoint, and prioritizing our team members, will yield greater client success overall. It’s a simple formula of happy team members equal happy clients,” Cherian said.
Their overall people strategy has four guiding pillars: Community presence and impact, team member experience, client experience and principled growth.
“To me, the measure of a culture is, simply put, an engaged workforce — a workforce that’s passionate about the company they work for and engaged in their talents.”
“When we do those things well, culture is thriving,” Cherian said. “And to me, the measure of a culture is, simply put, an engaged workforce — a workforce that’s passionate about the company they work for and engaged in their talents.”
Managing firm culture
As a growing firm, Donovan CPA knows that with their growth comes the risk of losing or watering down the strong culture they’ve built. This is why the principled growth pillar is so significant; they don’t want to grow for the sake of growth and are focused on how to best practice change management and preserve culture.
While they incorporate more traditional cross-organization events like a Family Day picnic, they also focus on making sure there are multiple levels of events and touch points, including departmental and position-level events to make sure there is connection across departments.
They’ve also recently introduced weekly growth meetings, an initiative they adopted from a recent firm merger. These meetings are intentionally kept small — around six to nine people — and allow space for acknowledgements as well as discussion of wins and fails for the week.
“It’s instilling an opportunity for vulnerability, and the leaders who lead those meetings and facilitate discussion know those meetings are as effective as the vulnerability displayed,” Cherian said. “These are the ways we can stay small as we grow.”
For Prasco, ongoing management is about making time to connect with her employees.
“You can’t forget that your staff are really your clients, too,” she said.
Managing your relationships with them is just as important and requires dedicating time to check in. Those moments to touch base, make sure they're okay and learn more about what’s going on in their world are critical for ensuring an employee feels appreciated and important.
Acknowledging the small actions they take can also go far.
“When they work hard on a Saturday, I say, ‘Thank you for being here all day. I know you could be somewhere else,’” Prasco said.
It’s another top-down move. Managers see these actions and it helps further instill a culture of gratitude.
The importance of firm culture initiatives
Examining and showcasing your firm’s culture might not have been a priority in the past, but if you’re not making dedicated efforts to assess your culture and how it’s working, you could be left behind.
Prasco notes she has found in conversations with students and young professionals that they see big firms as impersonal and cutthroat, a shift from when she started her own career. As a result, younger talent is looking more closely at cultural elements like flexibility.
This aligns with the Indiana CPA Educational Foundation’s recent research in which college student respondents highly ranked lifestyle factors in their list of career goals. 91% ranked work-life balance as important.
As this shift continues, small- to medium-sized firms might be better positioned to showcase culture, but Prasco emphasizes it’s not impossible for larger firms. While there may be more players, the top-down approach is still applicable — just at a grander scale. Communication is key.
How to start assessing your firm culture
Cherian recommends exploring resources like those from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and dedicating time to invest in networking.
“Connect with other business owners and community leaders and ask, ‘What do you do to make your culture pop and thrive?’ Because trying to figure it out on your own is not a recipe for success.”
“If you are a smaller firm, are you networking with other smaller firms? Maybe it's within the public accounting space, maybe it's not. Connect with other business owners and community leaders and ask, ‘What do you do to make your culture pop and thrive?’ Because trying to figure it out on your own is not a recipe for success,” he said.
But before you get started, Cherian also warns it’s important to make sure you’re ready to invest the time and resources into actually taking action from what you learn.
“Many times I see that organizations will do a survey for team members to fill out, and then it kind of goes into a black hole,” he said. “The team doesn’t hear that it's been completed. They don't know if any kind of change is being made, and that can actually be a really frustrating thing to the point where it's better to not ask.”
It’s also easy to focus on grand initiatives and or gestures like having a ping-pong table in the office. Culture can truly be simple.
“At the end of the day, everyone’s got to be happy,” Prasco says.
So how can you get closer to making this possible for your organization?
Getting started can be as simple as having a conversation with your team, but if you’re ready to take a formal deep dive into what’s working and what’s not, Cherian recommends starting with a survey (but still reminds you to do something with those results!). Options like the Gallop G12 survey are designed to help you measure and learn more about employee engagement.