Innovation

Over the past few decades, large businesses have been moving more towards a work-oriented life, meaning people are spending more time at work than they are at home with their families. Accounting firms have taken this ideal to the next level. Between the 1980s-1990s accountants continued to work about 40 hours a week during their year-ends. Now fast forward to 2017, and a 40-hour week during busy season is laughable. Public accountants work upwards of 80 or 90 hours a week during busy season. Essentially they spend more time at work than they do at home for an extended period of time. Because of these harsh working conditions, large public firms are having a hard time retaining their employees, constantly losing them to the private sector.

What most firms have done is simply just offer a higher starting salary, which only works temporarily. Grant Thornton's approach has been to make work a more "homey" place to be, as well as they stress focusing more on family and social life over work. Throughout the past few years, Grant Thornton has gone through a massive refresh. It was mandatory throughout all offices to remove all the cubicles and remodel the buildings to create a more friendly environment. In addition to remodeling, all offices were fitted with multiple forms of entertainment (movie rooms, pool tables, fro-yo machines, etc.) On top of all of this the partners wanted to stress the fact that family and your well-being should always come before work, which is why they had launched a "flexible time off" system. What FTO basically means is that you are not limited to the amount of days you want to take off so long as your work is done. This allows employees to be able to work based off of their own schedules. For example, if employee A wants to attend a child's soccer games on Wednesday nights, the employee can adjust his or her schedule to take Wednesdays off if he or she so wishes. They have created a very friendly work environment, and with all of these changes combined have the highest inflow of new employees, highest growth rate of all accounting firms, as well as the highest employee retention rate of all accounting firms.

Inspiration

"It's called work/life balance not life/work balance."

Frank Kurre talked about how when he started working for Arthur Andersen he worked so much that in his early years life seemed to just fly past. Being in his early 20s and working for most of his week, Frank ended up missing a lot of significant events of his life due to work. On top of that he talked about how he often questioned whether it was all worth it or not on a weekly basis.

"We were a group of three guys stuck in a room the size of a closet with two cubicles to share and no windows!"

Another issue with the business profession was the working conditions. Frank didn't think your work place should be somewhere you dread going every morning, rather somewhere you can feel like home, especially if you're there for so long.

A combination of these two quotes is what led Frank Kurre to push so hard to create the culture that he did at Grant Thornton.

Overall impact

The overall impact was definitely effective. From a company standpoint, Grant Thornton achieved their goals of retaining as many long-term employees as they could while still increasing growth from an inflow of new employees, as well as taking employees from the Big Four. From the people's perspective it definitely helps them enjoy their day-to-day life a little bit more. This idea of a friendly workplace has already been scaled throughout the entire company. Regardless of the office location, they all follow the same theme, provide the same therapeutic activities, and have the same work-friendly environment. One of the larger goals outside of the company is to try and get these ideals to spread throughout the industry. If they could do it in their firm with well over 10,000 employees, any other large firm could begin doing the same. The financial industry is so caught up in making money that people quickly forget the importance of their own happiness as well as the mental state of their employees. When people live to work, eventually they burn out and have no desire to stay loyal. This change has also benefited local businesses around the area because it allows them to showcase their products and services for free.

Business benefit

This movement to focus on the employees, as well as remodeling, has brought a lot of good for the company. Although Grant Thornton is not a Big Four firm, a lot of employees formerly worked at the Big Four. Most people who made the switch are those who wanted to continue working in the field but also maintain a healthy work/life balance. As mentioned earlier, large accounting firms have some of the highest turnover rates for employees who have worked in the industry for four years or longer. After Grant Thornton's cultural change, they now maintain 94% of all employees who have worked for longer than four years, which is marginally higher than industry standard. This higher retention rate also brings benefits to the table, for instance the firm does not need to waste time training more and more new employees every busy season. And since most of the same people are returning, work can continue to be done more effectively and smoothly because employees are familiar with the process as well as the software.

The Big Four has the best and the brightest employees, and many smaller firms struggle to pull in employees from the Big Four due to the lack of desire. While employee satisfaction was the main goal, a by-product of the move was marketing. The best form of marketing for any company or product is work of mouth. The word of Grant Thornton being the place to work spreads around the professional field and has helped Grant Thornton get the same caliber employees as the Big Four firms. On top of that, Grant Thornton has also made a known presence on college/university campuses. At St. John's, large firms like PwC, EY, Deloitte, and KPMG get close to 200 applicants per recruiting cycle, and this past fall Grant Thornton received about 150 applicants for internships. Grant Thornton is now seen on the same level of desirability as larger firms.

Another benefit to the firm is potential sponsorships from local businesses. Grant Thornton offers free food, drinks, stress-relieving activities, etc., for their employees on a weekly basis. Because of this, local restaurants, masseuses, etc., have reached out to offer free services as marketing for their own businesses. Employees benefit from the free services and the businesses benefit from the low-cost marketing.

Social and environmental benefit

Creating a pleasant place to work changes people for the better. "If you are treated well where you work, you will treat others well outside of work." Frank's goal was to make his employees happy, but also to try and help radiate that same feeling to others, and in practice his theory works. From my personal experience, seeing people interact at my past jobs and internships is very different than how people interact at Grant. At my previous internships, as soon as the clock approached 5 p.m. you would hear bags and coats rustling around. At Grant, since the workspace is so relaxed there is no sense of urgency to get out of there, as well as there is no aura of stress lingering around. Although Frank Kurre set out to improve Grant Thornton, his overall goal was to set a new industry standard. "Being a good employer shouldn't be a treat, every firm should be like this." Other global firms are also beginning to take this approach in order to be more likable and desirable to employees. For example Protiviti, a mid-size consulting firm, is in the process of doing a full office makeover as well as implementing a system similar to Grant Thornton's "Flexible Time Off."

Interview

Frank Kurre, Managing Partner of New England