Treat Professional Development as a Core Strategy

Investing in a person’s growth is one of the few retention levers a firm fully controls. Compensation gets capped by the market, and flexible schedules are easy for a competitor to match, but a career someone is building is harder to walk away from. Firms that treat development as core strategy keep the people who are hardest to replace.

Automation Removed the Repetition That Used to Build Judgment

For junior staff, judgment used to come largely through repetition. Reviewing enough invoices, running enough reconciliations, and sitting in on enough client calls made patterns become instinct. Automation has taken over much of that repetitive work, and the on-the-job training loop younger accountants relied on no longer happens by default. Nearly half of professionals say they’re concerned about AI’s effect on the development of independent judgment, particularly among younger staff, and 71 percent say early-career roles need structured support from experienced peers to build the skills now at risk of being displaced, according to Thomson Reuters’ 2026 Future of Professionals Report. Firms that replace that repetition with structured mentorship, deliberate case review, and real feedback on judgment calls end up with associates who know the software and have built the judgment it can’t provide.

“At Count, the commitment to investing in people is core to our growth strategy, with reskilling and upskilling programs, and additional pathways and opportunities for career growth as we scale,” according to Corporate Development leader, Tony Cord.

Structured Mentorship Outperforms Shadowing

Employees paired with multiple supervisors are more likely to have at least one strong coaching relationship, and high-quality coaches often double as mentors who lower the odds someone leaves, according to peer-reviewed research. Mentors outside a person’s direct chain of command have a similar effect, softening the damage a poor supervisor relationship can otherwise do to someone’s plans to stay. The research is consistent on one point: mentoring reduces turnover most when it’s tailored to what a specific person needs, whether that’s career advice, technical modeling, or someone confirming they’re making the right call.

Cord cites high-quality coaching and mentorship infrastructure, combined with an “ownership mentality” and alignment for growth created by equity, or equity-like incentives at a firm, revealing ongoing opportunities to identify talented people ready for additional responsibilities.

Most Firms Don’t Plan for Who Comes Next

More than half of multi-owner CPA firms don’t have a written, approved succession plan. Defining what qualifies someone for partner, judgment a firm can trust, strong client relationship skills, credibility with younger staff, and some demonstrated contribution to business development, gives candidates something concrete to work toward well before anyone is up for the role.

Development Depends on Which Partner You Work Under

Most firms describe themselves as committed to developing their people. Fewer have the structure to back that up. The disconnect is rarely intentional. Development usually depends on which partner someone happens to work under, and few firms apply a consistent standard across every partner group. Turnover climbs and morale drops in firms where employees don’t see a real path forward, even when leadership believes one exists.

“The best firms we see align compensation and desired outcomes, including the responsibility of leaders to develop talent. With fresh senior leadership at the helm of so many firms, and with many thoughtful consultants providing support for rethinking governance and comp, I think the profession will become a magnet for talent,” said Count’s Cord.

Developing People You Might Not Keep

Investing in someone’s growth carries a real risk. A well-developed employee is also a more marketable one. Firms navigating this tend to treat it as a cost of doing business, on the logic that a firm known for developing people attracts more of them than it loses. The alternative, a firm that under-invests to avoid losing people to competitors, tends to lose them anyway, without the reputation that would have replaced them.

Treat Development as Infrastructure, Not a Program

Mapping the skills people need, building real mentorship, defining what readiness looks like, and applying it consistently across every partner group work best as one system. Firms that build this system get a workforce that can absorb the loss of senior staff without losing the judgment those staff used to pass down.