Provisional Accounting Blog

Your employees are a truly incredible bunch. They’re intelligent, driven, hardworking, and they truly care about the future of your organization. These people could work anywhere, but they’ve chosen your company.

The bar you’ve set for your employees is high, because they’ve proven they can handle it, but that doesn’t mean you can take them for granted. Every small accomplishment certainly doesn’t need to be called out, but failing to recognize exceptional efforts seriously decreases morale and lowers job satisfaction levels.

Make sure your staffers know how much you appreciate everything they do by taking the time to stop and congratulate seriously impressive wins. There’s many different ways to do this, so find the best fit for both the person and your organization.

Personal Acknowledgements

A sincere thank you from the boss means the world to employees. There are many different ways to deliver the message, so take each individual personality into consideration. Those who like being the center of attention will greatly enjoy being praised in front of everyone at a staff meeting. Conversely, employees who are very shy will likely prefer to receive recognition in a less public manner, such as an email sent to the group or simply a private conversation in your office.

Financial Rewards and Incentives

If your budget can handle it, pairing praise with a cash bonus, a gift card, or an extra vacation day can make success even sweeter. This is a nice way to give the person a little something for themselves, after they’ve worked so hard to achieve incredible results for the company. Little perks like these really make people feel appreciated, subsequently increasing their sense of company loyalty.

Well-Deserved Promotions

It might not immediately follow a personal milestone, but rewarding success by promoting from within builds a strong company culture. There’s no better way to recognize an employee’s contributions than giving their entire career a boost by bumping them up to the next level. People will be even more motivated to put their best efforts forward if they know they’ll be able to grow their career at your company.

If you’re ready to expand your team, Accountingpros Recruiting + Staffing is here to assist. Whether you’re searching for candidates specializing in accounting and finance, audit and taxation, cost accounting, analytics and reporting, or accounting support professionals, you can count on us to present you with the Northwest’s finest candidates every time. Contact us today to learn what we can do for your organization!

As a naturally shy person, it takes you awhile to feel comfortable around new people. You know you need to meet a new career mentor, but the thought of going to networking events makes you cringe. Approaching strangers and working a room just isn’t your thing, but don’t worry, there are plenty of ways for non-social butterflies to find a career advisor.

Stay in your comfort zone while searching for the right mentor by taking these three routes.

Consult Your Existing Network

If you haven’t seriously considered your existing network, you may be pleasantly surprised to discover the perfect mentor has been right under your nose all along. Whether it’s a former professor you always admired or a boss from a few jobs back with a seriously enviably career, someone you already know might be the perfect mentor. Even if your future mentor isn’t in your network yet, one of your connections may have a great suggestion, so ask around.

Search Social Media

Millions of people have a professional presence on social media, so use sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to find accomplished individuals in your industry. Study all the information they’ve shared publicly to gauge their fit as your mentor. Pay close attention to status updates and the general tone of their shared content, as this offers a glimpse into their personality and how the two of you might get along. When you find the right fit, send the person a message to introduce yourself and ask if they would consider being your mentor.

Join a Mentoring Match Service

Mentoring offers just as much value to mentors as it does to mentees, so many established professionals are actively seeking someone to advise. Sites like FindAMentor.com are filled with potential mentors who want to help someone like you, so create a profile and browse the possibilities on the site to see if anyone meets your criteria. This is likely the easiest option, because you already know the person is a willing mentor.

If your current accounting or finance job no longer makes you feel satisfied, it’s time to move on to a fulfilling new opportunity. Contact Accountingpros Recruiting + Staffing to access temporary/contract, temp-to-hire, and direct hire opportunities with some of the Seattle area’s leading employers. We’re here to make your career dreams come true!

A little friendly competition can be a great way to push your employees to work their hardest, but you have to take strides to ensure the atmosphere doesn’t turn cutthroat. Nothing good happens when people on the same team feel pitted against one another, so you have to work hard to build a supportive culture where one person’s win benefits everyone.

Five Ways to Build a Healthy Competitive Culture

Focus on Team Goals

Challenging your employees to meet a certain goal can be a fun way to boost productivity, but instead of focusing solely on individual results, emphasize the impact everyone’s hard work has on the group as a whole. When recognizing top performers, ask them to share their strategies for success with the team for the common good. Concentrating more on shared goals than individual performance is a great way to avoid conflict.

Give Everyone a Voice

Help everyone feel invested in the company by making each person feel like their thoughts and opinions count. Employees are much more likely to work their hardest and support one another if they feel a sense of ownership in the organization. When people truly care about the future of the team, they want to lift their colleagues up, instead of sabotaging them.

Share Individual Objectives

Your employees are all working towards the same common goals, but everyone has their own set of personal objectives. Simultaneously promote competition and team spirit by gathering everyone together before starting a big project to discuss what each person hopes to get from the experience. Getting these goals out in the open allows people to help each other find opportunities to achieve their objectives and hold them accountable for it.

Make Time for Fun

Super intense work environments breed conflict, so lighten the mood at your office by reminding everyone to have fun. Sure, your staffers might be trying to outshine one another, but nothing about this needs to be ruthless. If you see tensions rising, gather everyone for a ping pong tournament in the break room or hold an emergency beer Friday on a Wednesday afternoon instead.

Hire Team Players

The most important aspect of promoting a healthy competitive culture is hiring the right people. Those with a naturally aggressive, win-at-all-costs mentality might not be the best fit for your team. When hiring new employees, choose ambitious, even-tempered candidates who have a track record of playing well with others. These people can have fun with competition, but they won’t take it to lengths that turn your team upside down.

Your company needs the very best accounting and finance talent to thrive, so let Accountingpros Recruiting + Staffing assist in filling your open positions. We understand that no two teams have the same needs, so we take a consultative approach to fill your open positions with the best and brightest professionals in the Northwest. Contact us today to learn more!

If you’re like many people, you tend to work at a rapid pace during the morning hours and drastically slow down in the afternoon. More than just a coincidence, numerous studies have determined that people who start their day earlier are more efficient.

Published in the American Psychological Association journal, the study “Emotion” confirmed those who get up earlier in the morning are happier than their snooze button-hitting peers. The research team determined part of the reason for these results is early birds are generally more productive and proactive, which of course is enough to put anyone in a great mood.

Four Ways to Accomplish More in the Morning

Incorporate these tips into your life to create a new routine that seriously increases your level of output.

Get Up Earlier

It’s the most obvious way to boost your morning production levels, but also the most challenging if you’re not a fan of getting up early. Start gradually, getting up 15 minutes early each day, until you’re waking up at an hour you once never thought possible. It’ll take some willpower and you’ll probably need to start going to bed earlier, but you can do it.

Hit the Gym

Exercise is a quick and healthy way to wake your body up, so start your day with a sweat session. It doesn’t matter if you head to your local health club or complete a yoga workout in your living room, as long as you’re doing something active that makes you feel good for the rest of the day.

Avoid Checking Email

Checking email is incredibly time-consuming — especially if you’re doing it constantly — so leave your inbox closed for the first few hours of the day. If any urgent messages are waiting for you, the person will call to follow up, so take this time away from your inbox to work uninterrupted. You probably won’t realize how much time you were spending on email until you go without it for a few hours.

Make a To-Do List — and Stick to It

End each workday by making a to-do list for the next day, prioritizing what needs to be done first. This way, when you get started the next morning, you know exactly what you need to do, so you can get started right away. Try to complete the toughest assignments first, so they’re not weighing on your mind all day, as procrastination is a huge waste of energy.

If you want to start the next chapter in your Seattle area accounting or finance career, allow the recruiting experts at Accountingpros Recruiting + Staffing to guide your search. We won’t stop searching until we find the right temporary/contract, contract-to-hire, or direct-hire position for you. Take the next step towards a brighter future and contact us today!