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CREATE A CULTURE WHERE EVERYONE HAS EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

There has been a growing recognition of the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace over the years. This year it has been very refreshing to learn how firms are promoting a positive integration between work and life, to create an environment that influences career development and that empowers everyone. Furthermore, promoting an environment regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, disability, religion or sexual orientation, encourages individuals to feel valued for being the person that they are. Take some time to read some examples of how the Big 4, Mid-tier firms promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace: Big 4 PWC EY Deloitte KPMG Mid-Tier Grant Thornton BDO RSM Encouraging diversity at Pro-Recruitment Group: Here at Pro-Group, recruitment consultants are trained on diversity and inclusion and for each individual piece of recruitment we do, we will ensure that we present a diverse pool of candidates to our clients that match the brief. We have strict guidelines on equal opportunities and diversity and pride ourselves on ensuring our attraction methods reach as diverse a pool of talent as possible in-line with our client’s own policy. Some examples of this include: - GDPR compliant recruitment website & CRM system. - Drafting advertisements in a way that encourages applications from all suitable backgrounds. - Support for the unemployed – offering interview training and coaching free of charge for those in long-term unemployment. We also provide business attire and dry cleaning in preparation of interview as well as working with a firm who work exclusively with ex-service personnel looking for employment. - Engagement with colleges, universities and schools. An example of this is when Tom Eagle, Associate Director, recently presented to students at LSBU about a career in tax and finance and provided key interview tips and guidance. - Engagement with groups such as LGBTQ, disability, communities and BEME groups. This is an ongoing progress and championed by our own diversity and LGBTQ champion here at Pro – Matt Davidson – Principal consultant in our Not-for-profit team. - Women in Tax – Alison Keogh, Director, is part of a network for women in the profession to raise the voice of women. We have also chaired an event with Sue Kukadia (Global Immigration Specialist) on diversity and inclusion and an event with BDO challenging views on disabilities and those facing long-term unemployment. - Our Not-for-profit and charities team have key relationships with many charities that exist to serve the disadvantaged and a wide section of the community and society. We regularly engage with our contacts in these organisations when searching for talent both for specific pieces and on an ongoing basis. - Our CRM system has over 90,000 candidates on it from a wide range of industries and backgrounds. Example of our own Findings Below is our analysis of that last six months placements around D&I and gender: - Out of the placements we have made this year in tax across both in-house and consulting, 65% of them have been male. - Out of 22 placements that we have made in-house 12 male and 10 female. - Out of 111 placements that we have made in consulting 64 male and 47 female. - Out of the 22 placements that we made in-house, from consulting firms only 3 were female and 5 were male. - Out of the other 14 people that we placed in-house they were all from in-house tax teams 7 were male and 7 were female. - In terms of advertising, 53 of the 111 were from advertising the rest were from pro-active approaches on our database and LinkedIn. - Out of the 53, 24 of them were female and the rest male but its about 50/50 from in-house and consulting. - Diversity and inclusion have a big influence towards my role and the relationships that I have with my network, to ensure that I can deliver the needs of both my candidates and clients that I am working with. For more information about this article, or to speak to Dominic about opportunities that promote diversity and inclusion, contact him at dominic.watt@pro-tax.co.uk

Hunting for the Elusive Doers – the Skills Gap in the Tax Market

There is a phrase that no one in recruitment wants to hear; that there is a ‘skills gap’ in the current market. Most accountancy firms and in-house tax teams know that there simply aren’t enough ‘doers’ out in the market – the ‘doers’ is a technical term that my colleague Alison Tait and I coined to explain the types of tax professionals who ‘do the work’ so who prepare the tax computations, or the first draft of a report, or do the research for a meeting which someone else then reviews. To me a ‘doer’ is someone who is qualified – who knows what they are doing and who can do their job with minimal supervision – in accountancy speak they would be qualified seniors, tax accountants, assistant managers or junior managers. In law firms it is anything from a newly qualified to someone who is c 4 years’ pie. These ‘doers’ have become an increasingly rare breed and there are several reasons for their scarceness. I believe we are still to some degree feeling the impact of the last recession – which was generally accepted to have been from 2008 to 2013 and which I recently discovered is now called ‘The Great Recession’. When the recession hit - the Big 4 and Top 20 accountancy firms stopped taking on as many graduates and school leavers – as a result there has been only a very small trickle of newly qualified coming out these firms and on to the market in the last 10 years. Even though the firms have gradually been building up their graduate and school leaver recruitment again – they have done this very cautiously – again cutting numbers after the result of the Brexit vote in 2016 and holding them at low levels until they see the outcome. The majority of those they have taken on have yet to qualify. A practical example of this is that in ‘corporate tax’ ACA finalists class of 2018 at one of the Big 4 in Leeds there was only be one finalist. Back in the early 2000’s there would have been at least 6 in the year in that office in corporate tax alone. I suspect that they are representative of the market as a whole and that most offices haven’t returned to their pre recession figures for trainee tax folk. Traditionally it is the Big 4 and the Top 20 who provide the newly qualified ATT’s, CTA’s and ACA’s for both in-house tax teams firms and smaller accountancy firms (or as we used to describe ourselves ‘cannon fodder’).. Traditionally most tax practices also used to get around half of their tax staff from the Inland Revenue. At tax senior level it tended to be Tax Officers and ‘TOHG’s – Tax Officers Higher Grade’ who made the move to the other side of the fence. TOHG’s were particularly useful, they tended to have undertaken internal Inland Revenue exams and were used to running cases from start to finish. Unfortunately with merger of the Inland Revenue and Customs the way in which the combined HMRC staffs was trained changed and we began to see either clerical staff or Inspectors – neither of which could easily make the transition in to a tax compliance role. However there is some light at the end of the tunnel as HMRC themselves have felt a skills shortage and there are now a new band of ‘Tax Officers’ coming through who have been put through AAT level 3 or level 4 by HMRC. The first newly qualified from HMRC have been coming on to the market across the last 2 years and have joined firms who sponsor them for the next step of their professional exams whether that be ATT, ACCA, CTA, ICAS or ACA. I also think there has been some impact on the smaller accountancy firms in particular from the mind-set of the ‘millennial’ accountancy trainee. Those of us who trained in accountancy in the 1980’s and 1990’s expected to serve an apprenticeship – in fact to give our pound of flesh working long hours on somewhat repetitive accounts and tax compliance work before being promoted to work on more advisory projects. Many graduate trainees are looking for roles with a consultancy focus, where they can have more responsibility at an earlier stage. They don’t understand why they should be tied to a desk – presenteeism seems daft to a generation which can run a business from their mobile phones. There is therefore an expectations gap between what employers want and what new graduates expect. I also think that the rise of computers and AI means that some of the more basic tax compliance functions traditionally performed by tax trainees are no longer done by them – such as loading dividends in to tax returns .As a result the larger firms are training there staff in a different way, getting them involved in technical research and business development at a much early stage in their contract – getting them to do process improvement on compliance rather then the compliance itself. So what solutions are out there? How can we plug the gap? Well one part of the solution is the Government’s focus on apprenticeships and the Apprentice Levy. The Government recognises that there is a shortage of trained individuals and is aiming to upskill the population as such it has a target of 3 million new apprenticeships by 2020. All the major accountancy bodies are promoting apprenticeships and training providers have packages to run the apprenticeships for accountancy firms. It makes sense if you turnover more than £3 million to use your share of the apprenticeship levy to help fund your firm’s training contracts. For those turning over less than £3million you can do a ‘co-investment’ apprenticeship where you fund 10% of the training costs and the Government funds up to 90% (there is a nice summary at https://www.icaew.com/learning-and-development/accountancy-trailblazer/apprenticeship-levy and a great starting point for tax trainees is of course ATT https://www.att.org.uk/att-trailblazer-apprenticeship . For more detailed guidance at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apprenticeship-levy-how-it-will-work/apprenticeship-levy-how-it-will-work). However, there are a couple of practical things you need to bear in mind; firstly your trainee will then be covered by the apprentice laws which give them increased protection than a normal training contract. For example you can’t claw back from the trainee any fees for exams if they move firm on qualification, you also can’t let them go if they fail the exam at first attempt. In most cases you will also find that to qualify as an apprentice the trainee will have to take an extra paper or case study alongside the ordinary exams for the qualification and they will need to also complete a portfolio of evidence. Plus the apprentice needs to spend 1 day a week out studying – now this can be done in part in block form to fit round the usual 2 week study courses – but it does need to be adhered to. So one obvious thing you will need to do is go back to your training contracts and make sure that they are updated to fit the apprenticeship standards. Another thing to consider rather than bringing in someone to train up from scratch is whether you can attract a candidate who already has the skill set and training that you require. One obvious thing to consider is how flexible you can be in terms of working hours – there is a large chunk of the UK accounting populace who need for a variety of reasons to work part time. Many are of the generation that are trapped between trying to raise families and also look after elderly parents. Some simply have a passion for something other than tax that means they want to work part-time to help support their extra curricular activity. The Big 4 have led the way by offering some of the first home working contracts – KPMG for example now take on some expatriate tax staff on a compressed 8 month contract. The idea being that you work 50 hour weeks during busy season and then have 4 months off. I’ve encouraged clients to consider job shares and whether roles can be done on a part time or part home working basis. I’ve seen some really imaginative solutions with candidates being offered contracts where they work 5 hours from work and 1 from home each day. I’m also seeing a big increase in ‘term time’ contracts to help fit around child care in the holidays, Offering flexibility will allow you to attract more experienced staff who are likely to remain loyal to your firm or business because you have enabled them to balance their home and work responsibilities. Flexibility can also help you capture some of the elusive millennials who are often keen to work reduced hours to fit around other interests or to fit around world travel. Not every hire dreams of being a tax partner in an accountancy firm, lots of accountants want to do a good job but then be able to leave the stress of work at work when they go home. Interestingly, I’ve also seen the first candidates coming back to the market because they have been homeworking but miss being in an office. These candidates are looking for some flexibility but miss the camaraderie of an office environment. My personal ‘Bête Noir’ is the impossible job – where clients simply don’t appreciate how the tax market has moved – an example of this would be an in-house client looking for someone who is the mirror image of what they were when they moved into industry 10 years ago so searching for a Big 4 trained tax accountant with a corporate tax background and good degree, to work mainly on compliance and particularly VAT, in a role where there is no obvious scope for progression. Why would someone do that job when they are being wooed by every other Big 4, every Top 20 firm and every other in-house tax team? You can’t expect a bright graduate to want a role where there is no obvious opportunity to develop or get a promotion. Even if they do take the role its likely they will only use it as a stepping stone to get a more senior in-house role. Usually these impossible vacancies also come with an unrealistic salary banding! As a recruiter I have to counsel the client that they would be better off offering flexible and part-time working and getting someone more experienced who isn’t looking for promotion but who wants an interesting role that fits around their family commitments. I also have to give them the hard truth about salaries in today’s market. I actually had an interesting conversation recently with someone who really thinks outside the box, they wondered if we could set up our own training house to develop newly qualified for practice and industry. If there are any venture capitalists out there give me a call! Georgiana Head is trained in Tax with Price Waterhouse before moving into recruitment in the late 1990’s. She runs Georgiana Head Recruitment Ltd a taxation recruitment business based in Leeds which specialises in the North of England. She is also a soft skills trainer and a Member of the ATT Members Steering Committee and Business Development Group.

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