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Background
A common stigma attached to Big 4 employment is high turnover among employees. After, two or three busy seasons it is common for staff to leave the company. The reasons for leaving the company range anywhere from unreasonable working hours to better job opportunities in other companies. Researchers seek to understand why, even after years of existence, this pattern of high turnover continues to persist. Many accountants aim to work for Big 4 companies and most have dreams of becoming partner, but the truth is many do not actually make it to that level. The day-to-day pressures and long work hours of working in a Big 4 company are not unheard of and main reasons as to why people leave before they make it to partner. If employees are trained to be positive leaders who support healthy lifestyles, then an employee's quality of life would increase and the like their loyalty towards the company would increase.
Key findings and recommended actions
EMEA (the Europe Middle East Africa sector) had "the highest percentage of total revenues for the Big Four firms, averaging 43 per cent of total worldwide revenues. Americas average about 40 per cent and the Asia Pacific countries (including India, South Asia, China, North Asia and Australia) have the remaining 17 per cent of the revenue share" ( Big4.com,2013 ).
According to research conducted by ACCA and ACRA, the comments showed that "audit staff do not simply want less work and 'more life'. They also want to improve the quality and efficiency of audit work and stop the vicious cycles that, as one respondent put it, cause many to leave 'even though we love audit'" (ACCA, 2012).
A June 23 report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers concluded that workplace flexibility policies make workers happier and healthier, which benefits employers through lower absenteeism, lower turnover and higher productivity. The report said workplace flexibility also reduces traffic congestion, lowers costs for safety net programs and increases tax revenues by raising the percentage of people in the workforce (Cinquegrani, 2014).
Recommendation : Invest in napping pods "they can be rented for $795 per month" (Hoffman, 2010).
Future research should be performed which would examine the relationship between rest and productivity within the...