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“And also there’s evidence there is greater potential for conflict as the sleep deprived person is unable to correctly read the non-verbal communication of others,” she adds. Not enough sleep is mostly due to life-style, she says. As studies show, staying awake for 17 hours is akin to having a Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of 0.05%. Having at least seven hours’ sleep every night is also important. We know performance suffers if you don’t take breaks but it has to be led by example from the top,” says Clare Mann. “Things like encouraging people to take breaks, instead of working at desks all the time, which has plagued us for so many years and catches up with us, can make all the difference. Stress is a constant factor in many people's lives and burnout is on the rise. She says having enough downtime is also important because many accountants and bookkeepers are living on fight or flight. Are staff really able to use them, or are they just for people the culture deems ‘flimsy’ simply because they use the policies? For example, is a new mum in a company with family friendly policies working 15 hours a day without complaint because that’s the unspoken ethos of the firm and using such services means they’re self-selecting not to be on the promotional ladder? If so, then that’s just paying lip-service to these reforms.” “Lots of companies have work-life balance policies,” she says, “but the internal culture may not reflect them. One of the aims of such policies was to ease the kinds of pressures and burdens that can lead to mental health problems and cause hiring and retention problems.Ĭlare Mann questions whether these policies are actually being delivered as intended across the accounting profession, while she says not having awkward client conversations may make them harder to implement because of the additional pressures this puts on teams. This encouraged better work-life balance, particularly for women and parents.

The workplace was already evolving following more family friendly policies that began to be introduced around the world in the 1990s. While many accountants and bookkeepers told Ignition’s 2022 State of client engagement in Australia report that avoiding or delaying awkward client conversations has contributed to the problems of poor work-life balance already facing the profession, such as high levels of stress and burnout, Clare Mann says avoidance of conflict is common to everyone. Recent phenomena such as ‘ quiet quitting’ and ‘ the great resignation’ are also putting additional strain on practices that are finding new recruits harder to find. The costs of a stressful workplace and a poor work-life balance on mental health include burnout, disengagement, sick leave and staff turnover, Clare Mann says.

#AWKWARD CONVERSATIONS ABOUT MONEY BOOK ONLINE FREE HOW TO#

In an effort to better understand some of the pressures on firms, and how to better deal with awkward conversations and trends that may be related to them, such as ‘quiet quitting’ and ‘the great resignation’, we spoke to psychologist and communications trainer Clare Mann, who has worked extensively on training with CPA Australia. It fatigued a lot of people in the profession. She adds: “It’s the first time many of us have experienced a global health emergency for a lengthy time period like that. We’re all human and asking a business that is struggling financially already to pay more for the additional services that you have been providing is a difficult conversation to have.” And the knock-on effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to be making such problems worse for companies.Įmma Crawford-Falekaono, Managing Director of EMEA at Ignition, says: “The last two and a half years, with the COVID pandemic, and now moving into an economic downturn, has put the stress of having to navigate dealing with pay overages on advisers. Ignition’s research shows that large numbers of accountants and bookkeepers in all three countries said their mental health and that of their team’s has suffered as a result of avoiding or delaying awkward client conversations.

The cost of putting off awkward conversations with clients, especially over out of scope work, unbilled hours and late payments may be deeper and more serious than many realise.

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