Is your firm achieving work-life balance?

Almost half of firm leaders find balancing work and life a challenge. David Clatworthy looks at what firms can do to foster better work-life balance and its importance.

Striking the right balance between business and personal life is a challenge faced by many accounting and financial services principals and partners. In today's busy world, where there's increased demand on business owners and longer hours spent working, finding work-life balance has never been more important to help improve efficiency, drive performance and prevent fatigue.

Macquarie recently conducted a national survey among small and mid-tier accounting and financial services firms which found that spending enough time with family, prioritising personal goals, and managing stress and fatigue were the biggest challenges of managing work-life balance.

Forging long-term relationships with clients and staff appears to come at the expense of personal goals business owners have set themselves, including achieving more independence and more time with family.

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Implementing a framework to address this imbalance is beneficial for principals and partners, as well as their employees. Having a well-defined value proposition, improved internal efficiencies and a flexible approach to work are essential to establishing a work-life paradigm.

Balance is key

Our research showed that not having enough time to spend with family was a challenge for 45 per cent of leaders at firms earning more than $2 million per year in revenue, while nearly half (48 per cent) were concerned with not having enough time to invest in their personal priorities for the business.

Encouraging better work-life balance practices among staff really does make good business sense. Business owners who effectively balance the demands of work and personal life are more motivated to give their best when they are at work and are less stressed.

Practices achieving above average profit are making better headways in this area. They have a clear vision on business objectives and outcomes to drive the shift in managing time allocated to business versus personal time.

Flexibility can lead to a positive work environment

Flexible work practices can be not only beneficial for business owners, but for staff as well. Implementing flexible work arrangements can be an effective way of stemming loss of skills and experience, and safeguard against the high cost of recruitment and retention in a competitive market.

With improvements in technology, it's easier now than ever to provide flexibility within a workforce, such as providing the tools for staff to work from home when needed or offering flexible working hours.

Employers who provide flexible work options can immediately gain a competitive edge against their peers, as staff will want to work for an organisation where they feel satisfied and understood.

By aligning business and individual goals, business owners can attain a win-win scenario for all by addressing the business needs and the individual needs of their employees.

Leverage internal resources to manage priorities

Generally, principals of accounting and financial services firms are carrying the bulk of the client workload.

However, we are seeing business owners from high performing firms actively utilising the resources at their disposal to help manage competing priorities in their business and strive for a better balance between their work and family commitments.

To improve business efficiency, it's important to be able to step back from the day-to-day business activities to focus on driving the business' strategy and identifying key areas of growth.

By having the right staff in place, principals can transfer their client relationships across, allowing them to instead focus on running and growing their business and delivering the overall business strategy.

Owners of larger firms especially tend to have more challenges with freeing up their time to spend with their clients.

Many of these businesses recognised their shortcomings in the effective use of technology, with one in seven firms using time-intensive manual systems for issuing invoices, which can be slow and expensive.

This suggests that for business owners, greater business efficiencies are needed to help win back more business and personal time.

Automation and outsourcing are also essential for creating a more dynamic environment.

Our research found that 82 per cent of high-performing firms are outsourcing non-core revenue generating activities, such as IT and tech support, to free up time elsewhere while 37 per cent of smaller firms plan to increase the amount they outsource over the next 12 months.

A clear value proposition can provide direction

Indecision is holding smaller firms back from achieving greater work-life balance.

This could be a result of the increased complexities which come with a growing business, as well as changing regulation and client expectations.

Having a clear value proposition is the most effective way to drive the direction, priorities and expectations of the business and ensure your work time is spent most effectively.

You can develop some certainty by identifying the business' priorities and objectives for key areas, such as where you can efficiently cut costs, how you can improve customer satisfaction, areas where you can create new revenue streams or even increase revenue from existing operations.

What does this all mean for your firm?

Ultimately, work-life balance needs to be driven from the leaders of a firm.

Those who are achieving it are doing so by driving a more flexible work approach for all staff members, delegating work amongst the team and prioritising personal time for themselves and all staff.

Find more time for the things that matter — time with your family, time for yourself and time spent working on the business.

David Clatworthy is the division director at Macquarie Wealth Management.