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Experts Recommend Proactively Reducing Stress to Mitigate Tax Season Burnout

Burnout is a common problem in the accounting industry, but it can be prevented with the right strategies and transformational leadership style.
Worldwide, accounting professionals cringe at the thought of busy season. Working up to 80 hours a week, feeling the tax season crunch, and forcing others to also work overtime to meet deadlines for clients and the government all add up to frazzled, fed-up, and burned-out employees.
Unfortunately, that also often leads to staff running for the exit.
To try and combat burnout and talent loss, as well as help foster better business cultures, the Center for Accounting Transformation began offering a webinar series focused on personal resilience, which has been highly popular among accounting professionals. The most recent program, Business and Boundaries for Better Time Prioritization and Work-Life Balance, provides valuable insights and practical strategies for managing stress, setting boundaries, and achieving a healthy work-life balance. The webinar, which is also available on demand, includes a discussion of the latest research on burnout in the accounting industry, which can help to understand the factors that contribute to burnout and how to prevent it.
Business and Boundaries for Better Time Prioritization and Work-Life Balance features Dr. Bryan Coleman, DBA, CPA, the accounting program chair at Nichols College; Geraldine Carter, founder, owner, and business coach at Geraldine Carter, LLC; and Texlin Usher-Quinney, Ph.D., PMP CPA, a vice president and controller at ElectriCom, LLC, and founder and president of Total Quality Excellence LLC.
In addition to sharing personal stories of burnout, the panelists also discuss how they overcame burnout and how they help others prevent toxic levels of stress from overtaking their lives.
“The solutions can be relatively straightforward, but the field of view is blocked from seeing the solutions because of the overwhelming pressure,” she said. “The stress becomes so consuming that it prevents us from being able to see the path out.”
Coleman, whose research is specifically related to job burnout, leadership styles, and turnover as it relates to the public accounting industry, recalled working in public accounting. “I remember times…literally just sitting out of my car, before going into work and being like, ‘Give me a reason,’” Coleman said. “Give me a reason for today to be my last day.”
Usher-Quinney said she had an epiphany when talking to one of her colleagues and being alarmed. While she found herself working 80 hours a week, she was more unnerved learning how a coworker was coping at home by herself after bouts of passing out. “She told me that she had—in her living room—moved all of her furniture to the outer wall,” Usher-Quinney explained. “So that just in case she was working, and she passed out again, she wouldn’t hit her head and kill herself. And it was really at that moment that I was looking at her and trying to understand how she didn’t see that as being problematic.”
Passing out, while an uncommon side effect of burnout, is not surprising given the list of other personal symptoms: emotional exhaustion, physical fatigue, and decreased productivity.
In her experience, Carter said it’s much better to be proactive and address self-care before it becomes a personal crisis.
“The solutions can be relatively straightforward, but the field of view is blocked from seeing the solutions because of the overwhelming pressure,” she said. “The stress becomes so consuming that it prevents us from being able to see the path out.”
The panelists agreed that self-care needs prioritization to create healthy working environments and that it is essential for leadership to set the example to show it’s okay—even preferred—for employees to take care of themselves so they are able to care for others, including clients. Additionally, it empowers employees and makes them feel cared for at work, reducing stress and, consequently, talent loss.
“I promised myself if I ever became a manager of people, I would never want my team to feel that kind of pressure from me that my coworker felt,” Usher-Quinney said. “And so, my leadership style is very human-centered. And, yes, the work will get done, but I care about and value my team members.”
To learn more from panelists on the importance of better time prioritization and work-life balance, register for the on-demand webinar at: https://improvetheworld.net/product/business-and-boundaries/. For more information and resources on Personal Resilience offered by the Center, visit https://improvetheworld.net/personal-resilience/.