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‘We don’t feel like we have

to take on every client. We

know what we need to do

in each of our departments,

and we kind of plan against

that.’

Josh Lance, CPA, CGMA, founder of Lance CPA Group

Today, the 40-hour week is the year-round “If you have happy people, you have happy
standard at Lance CPA Group, making the clients. If you have no people, you have no clients,” About the
18-person firm a leader in the movement to said Cox, a shareholder leading the tax practice at author
unbusy the busy season. Saltmarsh, Cleaveland and Gund, a large firm with
Andrew
Across the United States, firms are abolish- offices in Florida and Tennessee.
Kenney is
ing requirements for high-hour workweeks. She continued: “At the minimum, you have to
a freelance
They’re using new time-tracking tools to help do what staff expect. And what they expect is to not
writer based
employees get more done in less time, finding be killed, not be overworked, to have a decent work/
in Colorado.
new ways to distribute work among employees, life balance.”
and minimizing the busy-season surge by So, how can firms meet that expectation? Here’s
spreading work throughout the year. how these leaders and others are trying to change
“It really helps our way of working. It the busy season — and how it’s working for them
ensures that our culture is working well, and so far.
we’ve gotten really good people as a result,”
Lance said. CHANGING THE PORTFOLIO
Not every firm can go as far as Lance, of As he started his new firm, Lance hired staffers
course. But reforming the busy season is in- who shared his vision for a different type of firm,
creasingly a necessity as the profession competes especially young parents. He embraced flexibility
for talent, according to Suzanne Cox, CPA. by offering fully remote jobs. But his loftiest goal

journalofaccountancy.com October 2022 | 7