By Steve Saah.
Unpredictability has defined much of 2025 so far—and your firm is likely feeling pressure on multiple fronts. Your clients are turning to you for strategic guidance as they face inflation, market volatility, regulatory shifts and changing consumer behavior. Internally, you may be taking a hard look at your firm’s financial health and long-term resilience. Meanwhile, attracting skilled talent remains challenging, especially with many professionals feeling uncertain about actively exploring the job market.
In this environment, maintaining the status quo might seem like the safest course for your business as well. But standing still could carry greater risk. Instead, you may want to consider doubling down on efforts to build a future-ready CPA firm. If you increase your focus on creating a workplace where people want to be—and where clients want to bring their business—your firm won’t just weather the current turbulence. It will emerge stronger, more agile and better equipped for long-term growth.
Here are four strategies that can help you prepare for the future as you navigate uncertain times.
1. Prioritize strategic investments in technology to enhance team performance
In an unpredictable business environment, your technology strategy should remain a priority. Even when budgets are constrained and hiring is difficult, continued investment in the right tools—particularly those powered by AI—can provide your firm with a meaningful and lasting competitive edge.
Thoughtful investments in advanced technology are a force multiplier because they allow your people to do their best work, faster. They can also enhance your firm’s ability to attract and retain talent—and valued clients. Top professionals are drawn to firms that support their employees with modern tools and infrastructure. And clients increasingly expect seamless, tech-enabled experiences from their advisers.
How this makes your firm more future-ready: Reduced manual work, streamlined workflows and data-driven decision-making can help your team operate with greater agility and efficiency. You’ll be better equipped to take on complex client needs, respond to change faster and deliver consistent value.
2. Emphasize the importance of soft skills, including when hiring
Technical skills will always be vital in accounting and finance—but soft skills can be even more valuable to business success especially in uncertain times. As a leader, you help set the emotional tone for your team. Strive to model emotionally intelligent leadership by managing your reactions and encouraging transparency, especially when tensions run high. Show your team how to engage constructively with clients and colleagues under pressure.
Encourage your team members to focus on developing their soft skills and create opportunities that can help them do it. For example, set up mentoring arrangements, encourage peer-to-peer coaching, and design cross-functional projects that stretch communication and leadership skills.
Also, be intentional about making emotional intelligence a feature in how you hire, cultivate and promote talent. Don’t just evaluate candidates based on credentials or technical proficiency. Look for qualities like adaptability, curiosity, empathy and collaborative instinct. These are traits that help to forge stronger client relationships and more cohesive teams.
How this makes your firm more future-ready: A team that communicates clearly, collaborates effectively, and maintains composure even as demands shift and tensions rise is better positioned to manage complex work, build lasting client relationships and deliver consistent results.
3. Focus on building a robust and scalable talent pipeline
It’s tempting to take a wait-and-see approach to hiring in an uncertain market. But that doesn’t change your firm’s need to have the right people in the right roles today, and tomorrow. Start building a pipeline of talent by engaging your current employees in meaningful career conversations. Today’s professionals want specifics from employers on how they can grow. And when your team members feel heard and supported, they’re more likely to stay, contribute more, and step into new challenges when the time comes.
Strategies to help grow and maintain your talent pipeline include:
- Identifying high-potential talent and give them opportunities to lead.
- Encouraging job rotations across business areas to broaden employees’ skills and perspective.
- Bringing in new hires who offer complementary strengths and fresh thinking.
· Prioritizing formal succession planning. Another strategy is to adopt a flexible staffing model. Engaging skilled resources like contract talent and project-based consultants when needed allows your firm to access specialized expertise and maintain momentum without expanding permanent headcount. How this makes your firm more future-ready: Building a talent pipeline that includes internal talent and on-demand expertise helps you reduce risk, improve service delivery and position your CPA firm to compete at a higher level. It gives you the bench strength and flexibility to adapt, no matter what the market throws your way.
4. Step up your brand-building, inside and out
Your brand isn’t your logo or website. It’s your business reputation, your values in action and the day-to-day experience of working with and within your firm.
Take a hard look at your firm’s value proposition. It shouldn’t just sound good. It should be clearly demonstrated in how you serve clients, how you support your people and how leaders act across the organization. Are you making promises you can deliver, and delivering on the promises you’ve made?
Look at the client experience you offer. Do your teams consistently deliver the professionalism, insight and responsiveness your brand promotes? Then, look inward. Are your recruiting messages aligned with what new hires experience once they’re on board?
Finally, examine your succession planning and leadership development. Are you preparing future leaders who will embody and champion your firm’s values? Or are you advancing employees based on technical skills and hoping the rest follows? A brand that endures is carried forward not by marketing, but by the people you empower to lead.
How this makes your firm more future-ready: A strong brand helps keep your organization aligned and focused during periods of change. It unites your team members around a clear purpose, attracts clients who genuinely value what you offer and cultivates leaders who live your firm’s values. The result? Your CPA firm can scale with intention and respond with confidence in any environment.
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Steve Saah is the executive director of the finance and accounting permanent placement practice at Robert Half, the world’s first and largest specialized financial talent solutions service. The company has more than 300 locations worldwide. He is responsible for leading U.S. operations, based in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. He was named executive director in 2017, previously serving as director of permanent placement services.
Saah has been with the company since 1998, where he started as a recruiting manager, following a career as an internal auditor and assistant controller. He is a noted expert, author and presenter on career, management and hiring trends, particularly those affecting the accounting and finance fields. Saah earned a finance degree from Virginia Tech.
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