18 LISTENING TO OUR DIRECTORS AND PRINCIPALS | BDO LLP
WORKLOAD AND RESOURCE
There is also a sense in audit that – even though less than £20m of our work is PIEs – the PIEs hijack the agenda because of the consequential impact on resource on mid-market clients They raised that the firm needs to do all it can to guard against this ultimately having a consequence on quality. SPOTLIGHT ON SUPPORTING EXPERTS We discussed how to ensure all our capabilities were in sync: ensuring we have sufficient so-called ‘back office’ capability of technical experts, as well as operational infrastructure, so we can deliver to the client needs The group highlighted that this is getting more professionalised, and specifically called out Anthony Appleton for his work here since he joined. NEXT STEP FOR DIRECTORS AND PRINCIPALS To continue discussing workload challenges and solutions with your partner group To be alert to, and have confidence in, Paul’s principle: wellbeing of our people and quality of our work are both imperative. If that means turning down new work opportunities, we must do that To ensure your teams are aware of internal job or development opportunities, for example internal secondments or new roles, so they don’t think that their next move has to be outside of BDO.
SPOTLIGHT ON AUDIT The resource discussion was particularly hot for the Audit Director group For example, one Director highlighted that her sector has 50 people at manager level or below and none of them have more than one-year qualified experience They wanted to hear from Paul how partners are incentivised when it comes to taking on new work, and who can ultimately make the decision to stop taking on any new work until we can deliver what we have on our plates now Paul highlighted c. £30m worth of audit work that he personally knows of that we have turned down for Wellbeing or ESG reasons – a principle that he actively supports and openly promotes with leaders and partners There was a sense that there’s a difference in partners saying they want to do the right thing – for example a 4Rs programme – with the reality that they are still driven to hunting out new work The Directors also feel a drive to grow their own portfolio to bank their future success, which means driving business development and relationships that they doubt the firm can currently deliver on One attendee recommended that we need dedicated routes to upskilling our manager population to take on these complex jobs. They said that they currently look to the same good ten FS audit managers to deliver the hardest jobs, which isn’t sustainable
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