Senior audit associate here… I am looking for help in ideas to motivate the staff to perform better. Most of our staff appear to be treating their work as a mindless job and not a career. Most of them don’t appear to want to put into the effort to truly understand what they are working on and try to get better. This ends up in continued poor performance and the majority of work falling on the seniors/managers. Hoping to find some ideas from others to help turn this around! Thanks.

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If your staff can't do staff level work and it's going up to seniors and managers you need to be sending more stuff back with coaching and making them fix their own errors + making it clear that their current level of performance is not acceptable

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I think it’s just a maturity thing. They just got out of college, and are still in “party mode” for the most part, the job is just more “homework” they have to complete before they can go do fun stuff with their friends. I’ve met a few staff who are really dedicated but they just have that personality. The other staff will need to just grow up over time… I don’t think anything will make them passionate about this until they realize that this is how life is now and they need to engage with it.

Hope to see some better answers below! Lol

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I’ve found success with doing a live review of their workpaper with them if they’re phoning in responses to review notes. It gives them a chance to ask clarifying questions while we’re walking through it and I can be more thorough with my ask. It doesn’t take me longer than leaving review notes and seems to do the trick.

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I got a tip. Thanks

Can you give an example? What kinds of things are they doing that indicate they are not working to understand? Does this kind of thing occur when they encounter an area for the 1st time or the 20th time? Are you providing them with the relevant background knowledge that is idiosyncratic to the client/specific area they are working on?

It just seems very hard to believe that "most" of the staff would truly be treating their work as mindless, especially when they have taken the time/effort to meet the requirements to enter the firm (i.e. 150 hours)--not to mention the extensive amount of time the dedicated to navigating the recruiting process.

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I think it is a misconception to think they know what they are getting into during recruiting and studying even if they had an internship. I think the poster is trying to say he is seeing staff unable to critically think and apply methodologies to tasks. I have seen the same in my staff. Asking questions to finish rather than to learn.

I think this comes from the top down. I would try and increase partner and manager involvement in conversation to inspire them to what a career will be. The new classes have no clue what the before times looked like. If the after times will keep at this current rate, it makes sense that they are acting more as robots than critical thinkers.

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