Why a War on Accounting Firm Culture?

Last year, HORNE openly declared a war on accounting firm culture.  Why?  Because, to paraphrase Herb Stein, things that can’t go on forever, won’t.  And the culture of public accounting simply can’t go on without significant change to the way we work.

I started my CPA career at a large, international firm.  It was the stereotypical experience of billable hour goals, lots of travel, and the concept of paying my dues.  I left public accounting after 18 years for private industry—but the accounting profession got 18 good years from me.

Now that I’m back in public accounting, I see that we’re having a hard time even attracting students to the profession—and many leave after just a short period of time, with Millennials deeming public accounting as “not worth the sacrifice.” (PWC’s “NextGen: A global Generational Study”)

This AICPA whitepaper titled “Becoming the Firm of the Future” (written by our Executive Partner Joey Havens) explains it all in detail, but in short, the collision of several factors is challenging our very existence. Among them—increased demand for talent, unprecedented retirements, record turnover, leadership voids, the antiquated model of the billable hour, and way too many rationalizations.

HORNE started talking publicly about our “War on Culture” in 2014, even though we’ve been working for the past four years to be ready for battle.  We believe if we don’t change how we work, we will be fighting just to remain relevant in a few short years.  Thus, the war on culture has been declared at our firm—and we are hoping many other accounting firms will soon join the fight.