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Employer Value Propositions - Get the Basics Right

James Markham

There are echoes for law firms in the problems articulated in this FT article for audit firms, particularly the challenges around training, culture and the US regulator drawing a link between those factors and audit quality


But I think the fundamental challenge, missed in the article, is that it's just not economically attractive for people entering into the profession


Rather than defend the value of audit, firms have been all to quick to engage in a race to the bottom - driving cost out (primarily via delegation, offshoring and tech) rather than maintaining prices in real terms


And this makes entering the profession for graduates wholly unattractive, particularly when compared to law, finance, tech etc


To illustrate this, albeit from a UK rather than US perspective, I originally trained as an auditor, joining a firm in the Midlands on a salary of £20,000 in 2008


A quick google suggests that the going rate for the same role in 2025 is £25,000


A 25% increase that pales in comparison to a 60% increase in inflation (CPIH) over the same period


So the salary for the same job now as then buys less stuff - a meaningful pay cut in real terms


There's also a ~300% increase in student loan debt on graduation to factor in


But the real kicker is the increase in National Minimum/Living Wages over that period - an increase of 200% (and this is before the 6% rise in April 2025)


The full-time salary of someone currently on minimum wage is around £22,000 - there is no meaningful premium here for training as an accountant vs stacking shelves in a supermarket


And I draw that specific example because, before I started my training contract, that was what was doing - I was a manager in a supermarket


If I was in the same position today, I would be taking a meaningful pay cut to start a training contract


That doesn't sound right?


Yes, sure, future earnings potential - but in 2008 there was future earnings potential plus I started on a salary that was a decent step up from stacking shelves - so what gives now?


To be clear - I'm not bashing my former employer - I remain fond of them and this is a structural, industry wide issue


But back to the "Gen Z don't work hard anymore", "they're not very good", "but culture" etc that comes through in the FT article:


(1) This cultural divide is impacting the quality of the work product, so will increasingly become a client satisfaction issue, and


(2) They just don't wash if you're not paying your Gen Z staff in 2025 what you paid your Millennials in 2008 - either in terms of earnings power (with reference to inflation) or with reference to other opportunities (be that stacking shelves, working in bars or delivering for Amazon; let alone the highfalutin professions that graduates want)


You've got to get the basics of the Employer Value Proposition right - that being pay for hours


And that is very difficult if you haven't first sorted out Service Proposition with clients and, importantly, the pricing of that



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