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Due to the tremendous demand and the short supply of qualified tax professionals, the subject of retaining one's current tax staff is of high importance to the management within Corporations, Public Accounting and Law Firms.

To have a better understanding of what the key "employee" issues are within a tax department, we asked the Question "What can your employer do to retain you?"

Retention Survey

Survey Methodology:

To ensure a balanced response, we surveyed a porportionate number of tax professionals by Title, Specialty and Geography. We received 1103 responses and the results are listed below.

Summary of survey results:

Overall Breakdown

Actual # of responses for the first, second and third choices.
Percentage of respondents who chose each issue as their #1 choice.
Percentage of respondents who chose each issue in their top three choices.

	# who chose as #1 choice	# who chose as #2 choice	# who chose as #3 choice	% who chose as #1 choice	% who chose in top 3 choices
1. More Money	356	217	151	32.3%	65.6%
2. Better Balance of Life	288	141	123	26.1%	50.0%
3. Better Career Advancement	120	121	132	10.9%	33.8%
4. Any or More Equity (Stock Options)	105	184	130	9.5%	38.0%
5. More Challenging or Exciting Work	73	94	97	6.6%	24.0%
6. Honest and Frequent Two-Way Communication	47	86	97	4.3%	20.9%
7. Authority is More in Line with Responsibility	32	64	64	2.9%	14.5%
8. Provide Mentor or Better Mentor	27	58	81	2.4%	15.0%
9. Better Benefits	26	100	166	2.4%	26.5%

Breakdown By Title

Percentage of respondents who chose each issue as their #1 choice.
Percentage of respondents who chose each issue in their top three choices.

	% who chose as #1 choice				% who chose in top 3 choices
	A	B	C	D	A	B	C	D
1. More Money	30.0	28.0	36.7	36.3	62.6	64.0	67.7	70.8
2. Better Balance of Life	18.9	30.5	27.5	28.0	45.8	42.5	52.4	44.0
3. Better Career Advancement	11.4	8.0	13.4	10.7	35.4	27.7	38.0	35.1
4. Any or More Equity (Stock Options)	13.1	10.2	4.5	11.3	44.8	37.2	29.1	43.5
5. More Challenging or Exciting Work	7.4	8.6	4.8	4.8	14.1	25.8	27.2	19.6
6. Honest and Frequent Two-Way Communication	7.4	3.7	3.8	.6	20.9	20.9	18.5	25.0
7. Authority is More in Line with Responsibility	5.4	3.1	10.0	1.8	19.5	15.4	9.9	13.0
8. Provide Mentor or Better Mentor	1.7	2.8	2.2	3.6	12.8	16.0	16.6	14.3
9. Better Benefits	2.7	2.8	2.2	1.2	25.6	28.6	28.1	20.8
A = Vice Presidents, Directors, Partners & General Tax Counsels
B = Managers and Senior Managers
C = Staff and Seniors
D = Tax Attorneys and Senior Tax Attorneys