Firm of the Future

At State House Square, one of downtown Hartford’s major Class A office properties, David Jakubowski keeps a close eye on parking garage traffic reports, eager to see concrete signs of greater employee activity as COVID-19 vaccination rates rise.

Hartford Business Journal polled a half-dozen large companies that collectively employ thousands of workers in the Capital City, asking them about their current remote work situations and plans to bring more workers back to the office in the months ahead.

Working from home is more common than ever, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. While it offers many advantages, it can pose some challenges when it comes to hiring, especially since it's highly likely you'll never meet the employee in person.

Tax and accounting professionals have joined most other businesses nationwide in adopting a host of different new practices to survive the pandemic, from hand sanitizer and masks to entirely new ways of interacting with clients.

Creating a brand, for yourself or for your firm, can help you stand out among competitors and position you as an expert to be trusted. It can also help clients find you and recognize that you are the right professional to help them.

This reopening offers us a tremendous opportunity to take the best of the new ways of operating from this pandemic and blend them with traditional methods. But I’ve been listening to a lot of firm leaders talking about their post-pandemic wishes in recent weeks, and I’m afraid that some are getting ready to make a series of reopening mistakes that could cost them dearly.

For the past seven months, the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA), and a group of more than 40 volunteer subject-matter experts have worked to develop a model accounting curriculum for students pursuing the CPA credential.

It's no secret accounting leaders are getting older, and younger professionals are frequently bypassing small firms in favor of joining larger ones. For smaller firms to be future ready, they need to bridge the generational gap and ensure they are developing new talent.