The Top 10 Reasons Your Company Doesn't Work Right
And yet, CPAs appear far and away more enthusiastic about their jobs than the American worker in general.

from the Career Insider for the AICPA

While many workers in the United States may fault their companies for lacking vision or organization, you might be hard-pressed to find tax, accounting and finance professionals who fall into that camp.

In fact, CPAs and other such professionals may be among the most satisfied and certain employees in the economy today.

In a poll of AICPA Career Insider readers, for example, 58 percent of respondents said that the goals of their particular firm or company were at least "pretty clear," including 11 percent who said the strategic corporate goals were "crystal clear."

On the other hand, a Harris Interactive poll, commissioned by the Franklin Covey Institute, found that over 50-percent of more than 12,000 American workers don't know their organization's most important goals.

In addition, 81 percent of CPAs say they are personally "mostly" or "totally" committed to their company vision, while only 22 percent of the average worker is "enthusiastic" in the Harris poll.

CPA firms and finance departments are clearly ahead of the game.

"We have changed our structure to track accountability," according to Christine Lauber, head of a local CPA firm in South Bend, Ind. "Now we are working on a firm-wide plan that integrates and communicates with all parts."

Significantly, however, when CPAs are asked about their colleagues' work ethics and attitudes, there's a dramatic fall-off. Only 51 percent of CPAs say their co-workers are as committed to their jobs as they are themselves. The figure closely matches the Franklin Covey results.

And, unfortunately, CPAs say that the company's goals are translated into action only about half the time, in line with other surveys.

So what are the stumbling blocks?

According to the Career Insider study, here are the top 10:

1. Overwhelming workloads, 58%
2. Unclear or shifting work priorities, 56%
3. Lack of resources, 43%
4. Our systems and processes are not properly aligned, 43%
5. There's not enough accountability, 42%
6. We don't meet regularly to review progress, 39%
7. Political issues, like turf battles or personality clashes, 39%
8. Lack of recognition or reward, 34%
9. We don't work together as a team, 32%
10. Upper management doesn't really support the goals, 29%

Griped one middle manager: "Two-, three- or even four-hour meetings are equated as getting things done. But nothing gets done because there is no accountability and we are in meetings all time."

Unfortunately, that wouldn't sound too unusual in most American companies.