Even with the challenges of finding and retaining talent and balancing the hybrid workplace, we have been very intentional in crafting our culture and the feedback we received from our staff tells us that what we are doing is working. While the two days we spent together helped us celebrate our successes, it also revealed how much our Rudler family values opportunities for growth as individuals and as a firm.
INITIATIVES WE CAN DRIVE
One important insight from the retreat is the continued need to evolve from accountants to advisors, which emphasizes building relationships and refining the client experience. We’ll focus on creating consistency among our engagement partners to ensure clients enjoy the same level of service regardless of who is attending to their needs.
AI is a tool we can leverage to help us with mundane but necessary tasks such as data entry and interpretation. At Rudler, we believe AI is not a replacement for staff or various tasks but a tool for refinement and support for our team that will allow us to serve our clients better.
It’s no secret that staffing challenges continue to plague many industries and ours has not been immune to that. While we feel we have been lucky to have a continuously steady stream of new talent come in over the last several months, leveraging AI will also help us overcome some of these continued challenges.
INITIATIVES WE HAVE TO NAVIGATE
An area for improvement that is not immediately in our control to change that we discussed during our retreat is the changing landscape of state and federal tax laws.
Legislative changes expected to take effect around bonus depreciation and the R&D tax credit earlier this year remain in Congressional limbo, which added to the challenges of this past tax season. There were also complications around new software and forms being ready at a federal and state level that had our team paused for longer than we would have liked on some filings. Luckily, we have a team dedicated to doing what is needed to provide outstanding service, which made it easier for us to navigate through these challenges than others.
There are also some tax laws sunsetting again and we anticipate additional ones coming in the next few years. Our goal is to be part of these conversations early on to help us with our strategy of moving into more of an advisory role, ultimately making us more proactive versus reactive in helping clients navigate these changes.
Focusing on these initiatives will help us serve our clients better and ultimately allow us to remain independent for many years. Remaining an independent firm will allow us to continue to build a culture and client base we’re proud of.
THE ROAD AHEAD
The question now is what are we looking forward to as we approach the second half of the year? I look forward to our first shareholder summit this July. It will be an opportunity for our partners to come together and focus on developing our leadership skills and planning for the future based on our team’s feedback during strategic planning.
Like our staff retreat, this event will help us enhance all of the things that make for a great team: understanding what motivates us, improving connections that ensure we continue our progress together and aligning on our path forward. Our spouses will join us for this retreat because the decisions made and actions taken at a leadership level affect our entire team at home and in the office. At Rudler, we’ve created somewhat of a family. We continue to remain invested in the personal and professional successes of each other and that of our business and our clients’ businesses. I believe we’re set up for success and look forward to what is in store for us through the remainder of 2024.
