Deloitte's Allen Discusses Changing Workplace, Future of Accounting
by Rob Meyer
Sharon Allen, a baby boomer with 30 years of accounting and auditing experience, spoke Wednesday evening to a packed room of McCombs accounting students from Generation Y (those born in the 1980s and 1990s), and assured them her company understands the expectations they have about the workplace they will be a part of in the future.
The event opened the Fall 2006 Lyceum Speakers Series.
Allen, chairman of the board of Deloitte and Touche, who recently was ranked the 96th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine, said research shows that Generation Y is hardworking, self confident and achievement orientated.
Yet at the same time, Gen Y-ers value nontraditional work environments, a healthy work-life balance and want to be evaluated on production rather than face-time at the office, Allen said.
 Sharon Allen, chairman of the board of Deloitte and Touche USA. |
Deloitte has responded with initiatives such as flexible scheduling and a program that lets the best employees return even after being away for up to five years.
In addition, Allen said, the company addressed the problem they had with women leaving the company at a higher rate than men. Women weren’t being assigned the best projects out of concern they would leave on maternity. Deloitte responded with career customization and mentoring programs.
“Our turnover gap has essentially been eliminated,” said Allen, who is the highest-ranking woman in the organization’s history
Allen said initiatives like these are the key to keeping a happy, productive and loyal workforce. And it seems to have worked. BusinessWeek just named Deloitte No. 3 in their ranking of the 50 Best Places to Launch a Career.
Allen also discussed how the profession has changed since the well-publicized corporate and accounting scandals of a few years ago. The result was the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation which covered accounting reform, corporate responsibility, disclosure and governance.
The new accounting rules have cost companies a lot of money and time to implement.
“If a company looked at Sarbanes purely as a compliance exercise it is natural that they would complain about the cost," Allen said. “But if a company looked at it as an opportunity to transform their organization to evaluate and improve processes and create efficiencies, the cost may just be justified.”
Allen told the students that Sarbanes-Oxley has meant that the role of the accounting profession to the capital market system has never been more important. And with it, they have never been more scrutinized.
“However, we
have never been more dedicated to make the capital market run
more smoothly, efficiently and productively for the benefit of
the investing public,” she said.
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