The Future of Jobs Report from the World Economic Forum reveals that 50% of all staff will need to reskill or upskill within the next five years.
In a fast-paced sector such as accountancy, staff training is essential to keeping employees happy and meeting customers’ needs. The talents of your accounting team need to be constantly upskilled and enhanced as the skills you need now may be different from when you were hiring.
According to Gartner, 33% of the skills that were listed in a typical job post in 2017 are no longer relevant. This further highlights the importance of staff training and upskilling.
In this article, we will explore why you should invest in staff training and upskilling for your accounting team.
Adapt to the changing work environment
The workplace in every industry has experienced massive changes in recent years because of the impacts of COVID and changing employee expectations. Accounting is no exception. Many firms are now seeing a shift to new work methods, with the implementation of initiatives such as the four-day workweek, and hybrid and remote working.
These changes have demonstrated significant benefits in employee well-being and productivity. But they also mean employees now need to adapt and use new skills.
You can invest in staff training and upskilling to help your team smoothly transition to these changes.
- Digital training: As you increasingly use digital technologies such as cloud-based software and rely on digital communication, offering your team training in these areas will help them adjust to new changes you implement.
- Communication skills: With remote work environments changing how teams communicate, offering training on soft skills such as communication can be beneficial in ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks.
Filling the skills gap in your accounting firm
As accountancy jobs continue to change with the introduction of new technologies, demands, changing regulations and more, you will start to see skills gaps in your teams.
Staff training presents the opportunity to assess your existing talent base and highlight where there are areas for new skills to be included.
For example, if your accounting firm is starting to use new technologies such as AI tools, training your staff on how to work with AI would be helpful.
Filling your internal skills gaps lets you cut down on the time and money spent on hiring new employees. Rather than looking for new people with the skills you need, you can use staff training to make the best of the human resources you already have. Not only is this beneficial from a financial standpoint, but providing progression paths for your team members can help improve retention and work satisfaction.
This brings us to the next point.
Retain your top accounting staff
Finding talented people for your accountancy team is difficult. When you find a gem, you want to keep them, and staff training will help you do that. In a time where the “Great Resignation” is still a burning topic for many hiring managers and employee turnover is higher than ever, finding talented staff is becoming more difficult, so you need to work harder to keep the staff you have.
Retaining employees is an often overlooked benefit of effective staff training. Employees that receive training to excel in their roles are 42% more likely to remain with a company long-term.
Looking For More Accounting News and Advice?
If you’re interested in finding out more about the current trends within the accounting industry, be sure to take a look at what the INAA can do for you. You can discover the benefits of INAA membership here, or apply for your membership on our join us page.