“Busy season” is always a challenging time for employees at SBF. Working with clients on tax planning and financial statements takes a lot of care, attention to detail and collaboration.
So as we enter our busiest time of year, SBF invests even more in team-building and engagement activities. We offer regular lunches and dinners for those working late, where you can connect with coworkers and get fresh perspectives on any challenges that come up. And special events help us mix it up — take last week’s champagne tasting, or our upcoming multicultural potluck, where everyone can bring a dish that represents their culture or that they simply enjoy.
Busy season can also be tough on the body, which is why we offer massages at the office. And even though we’re accountants, we enjoy a bit of fun. One of SBF’s favorite traditions is our Secret Buddy Month where employees can opt in to leave 1 secret small gift for their buddy for 3 weeks, and a final gift on the 4th week at a revealing.
Making busy season (and the whole year) fun, welcoming and supportive reflects our identity as a company. We’re constantly taking the pulse of employee satisfaction, whether it’s through surveys, regular check-ins for new hires by the onboarding team, or post–busy season debrief sessions. And we are always looking for ways to provide encouragement and recognition, such as offering shout-outs in our company-wide Slack channel.
It’s nice to see our culture and atmosphere recognized, and we recently learned that we are on the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s annual Best Places to Work list for 2022. Our employees filled out a confidential survey to place us here, which makes this award incredibly special to us. We’re grateful to have been recognized with this honor for four straight years, and we are the only CPA firm on the list.
“Our culture is what it is today based on intentional leadership and hard work from our employees,” says SBF partner Rich Franz. “It goes beyond work. You can tell that people genuinely care about each other and it shows.”