IOP 7100 Module 5 Final Paper: An Evidence-Based Intervention for Busy-Season Stress at an Accounting Firm Example

Hard Work Without Burnout: An Evidence-Based Intervention for Busy-Season Stress

Student Name

Graduate Certificate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Thomas Edison State University

IOP-7100: The Psychology of Leadership, Motivation, and Teamwork

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

Hard Work Without Burnout: An Evidence-Based Intervention for Busy-Season Stress

Introduction

Public accounting has a season that tests everyone in it. From late January to mid-April, and again before the October extension deadline, our associates and seniors work long weeks under fixed deadlines, often while learning new tax rules. The firm has always treated this strain as the price of the profession. But the costs are now visible. Turnover among associates and seniors reached 27 percent last year, most of it in May and November, recruiting has become harder and review partners report more errors late in each season. This paper defines the problem with the firm's data, reviews research on work stress, designs an intervention and sets out how the firm will know whether it worked.

The Problem

Three sources of evidence define the problem.

First, a short survey of 72 associates and seniors in April found that 58 percent reported feeling emotionally drained by work most days, compared with 22 percent in the same survey in September. Forty-one percent said they had trouble switching off from work during their days off.

Second, timekeeping shows that associates averaged 61 hours a week during the eight peak weeks, with some weeks above 75. About a fifth of logged time was coded as "waiting," "rework" or "administrative," time spent chasing missing client documents, redoing work after late changes and wrestling with software.

Third, exit interviews from the past two years most often cited three things: unpredictable schedules, work lost to disorganization rather than the hours themselves, and never having a full day off in March.

The firm cannot remove deadlines or the volume of returns. The question is whether the conditions of busy season can be changed so that hard work does not turn into exhaustion and departure.

What Research Says About Work Stress

Busy Season in Public Accounting

The profession has studied this problem directly. Sweeney and Summers (2002) surveyed public accountants before and during busy season and found that burnout rose significantly as busy season workload increased, with emotional exhaustion and depersonalization rising and personal accomplishment falling, and that the hours worked were associated with these changes. Their findings confirm that the firm's April survey results are not a local oddity but a pattern in the profession, and that the timing of the strain is predictable enough to plan for.

Not All Stressors Are Alike

Podsakoff et al. (2007) conducted a meta-analysis distinguishing challenge stressors, demands such as workload, time pressure and responsibility that people tend to see as obstacles worth overcoming because they bring growth or reward, from hindrance stressors, demands such as unclear roles, office politics, needless paperwork and daily hassles that people see as getting in the way. Both kinds wore people down, yet challenges went along with more satisfaction and loyalty, while hindrances went along with less of both and with more plans to quit and actual quitting.

The distinction is central for our firm. Busy season's hours and deadlines are challenge stressors; most of our associates chose accounting knowing about them. Chasing missing documents, rework after late changes, unclear priorities and software problems are hindrance stressors. Our exit interviews say the hindrances, not the hours, drive people away.

Recovery

Sonnentag and Fritz (2007) built a questionnaire on how people recharge away from work and named four routes: mentally switching off, relaxing, taking on a challenge outside work such as a hobby, and choosing for oneself how to spend free time. They found these experiences related to better well-being and lower strain. Detachment, mentally switching off, is precisely what our associates report they cannot do; 41 percent cannot switch off on days off, and in March many have no days off at all.

Control Over Time

Kelly et al. (2014) reported a group-randomized field experiment in an information technology division of a large firm. The intervention, called STAR, trained supervisors to support employees' personal and family lives and engaged work teams in redesigning how and when they worked, increasing employees' control over their schedules while focusing on results. Compared with control teams, employees in STAR teams reported reduced work-family conflict and greater schedule control. The study is notable because it changed work practices at the team level rather than offering individual programs, and because it used random assignment.

Individual Skills

Richardson and Rothstein (2008) pooled evaluations of workplace stress programs and found real overall benefits for stress and well-being, with the biggest gains coming from cognitive-behavioral programs, the kind that coach people to catch and rethink stressful thoughts and to practice coping skills. Individual programs can help, but they work best alongside changes to the work itself.

Demands and Resources

Bakker and Demerouti (2007) describe jobs in terms of demands, which cost sustained effort, and resources, which help meet goals and buffer demands. Their model suggests that when demands cannot be lowered, adding resources such as support, autonomy and feedback can protect people from exhaustion. For our firm, busy-season demands will remain high, so the intervention must remove the avoidable demands and add resources.

Alternatives Considered

Three simpler responses were considered before this design. The first was to hire more seasonal staff. Temporary preparers can absorb some volume, but they need supervision and training that fall on the same managers and seniors who are already stretched, and they cannot do the complex returns where most hindrances arise. The second was to raise busy-season pay through larger bonuses. Pay may help retention at the margin, but the exit interviews did not cite pay, and Podsakoff et al. (2007) show that hindrance stressors, which pay does not remove, are what drive turnover. The third was to offer a wellness program with exercise classes and mindfulness apps. Richardson and Rothstein (2008) found that some individual programs work, but on their own they leave the causes of strain in place. The chosen intervention keeps an individual skills component while putting most of its weight on changing the work.

The Intervention

The intervention has four parts, each tied to a research finding.

Part 1: Removing Hindrances

Most of the "waiting" and "rework" time traces to clients sending documents late and in pieces and to partners changing priorities without warning. The firm will set and communicate a document cutoff of February 28 for clients who want returns filed by April 15, with later documents moved to the extension process. A single intake checklist will be used for every client so associates know what is missing at once. Each team manager will publish a weekly priority list every Monday, and partners who change priorities midweek will do so through the manager. These steps target hindrance stressors directly without reducing the challenge of the work itself.

Part 2: Protecting Recovery

Every associate and senior will have one full day off each week through April, scheduled in advance and covered by the team. On that day there will be no expectation to answer email or messages; managers will be trained to hold questions until the next day. The protected day addresses detachment, the recovery experience associates most lack.

Part 3: Team Control Over Schedules

Modeled on the team-level approach Kelly et al. (2014) tested, each engagement team will meet in January to plan how it will cover the season's hours and deadlines, including when members work remotely, start early or leave for family obligations, within the constraint of meeting client deadlines. Managers will receive a two-hour session on supporting employees' lives outside work and on judging results rather than visible hours.

Part 4: Building Skills

In January, associates and seniors will attend four sessions of a cognitive-behavioral stress management program delivered by an employee assistance provider, covering recognizing stress reactions, challenging catastrophic thinking about deadlines, planning recovery and brief relaxation techniques. Attendance will be paid and optional, consistent with treating the program as a resource rather than a remedy for problems the firm creates.

Stakeholders

The intervention affects several groups, each with different interests. Associates and seniors stand to gain recovery time, predictability and fewer hindrances, but some may worry that a protected day off means more pressure on the other days. Managers carry much of the implementation: running team scheduling meetings, publishing priority lists and covering protected days. They may see the intervention as added work in their busiest season, and their support will decide whether it succeeds. Partners control client relationships and priorities; the document cutoff and the rule against midweek priority changes ask them to change long-standing habits with clients. Clients themselves may resist earlier document deadlines, although many will benefit from more predictable filing. Finally, the firm's administrative staff will manage intake checklists and track cutoffs, a new task during their own busiest period.

Each group's concerns shaped the design. Managers were consulted in December, and the plan reduces their review load by asking seniors to handle first-level review on protected days. Partners will receive a short script for explaining the document cutoff to clients as a way to protect the quality of their returns. Administrative staff will receive temporary help during February and March.

Communication and Change

Kotter (1996) warned that changes stall when leaders explain the goal once and leave standing the barriers that keep people from acting on it. The firm will explain the intervention as a way to keep good people and good work, not as a wellness program. The managing partner will present the problem data and the plan at the January meeting, managers will discuss it with their teams in the first scheduling meetings and a short update on progress will be sent every two weeks during the season. Obstacles that arise, such as a client who refuses the cutoff or a team that cannot cover a protected day, will be raised with the working group and resolved within a week. Early successes, such as the first month in which every associate took every protected day, will be reported to the whole firm.

Ethical Considerations

The intervention raises ethical questions that the firm should handle explicitly. Survey responses about exhaustion are sensitive, so they will be collected anonymously by an outside survey service and reported only for groups of five or more people. Participation in the stress management program will remain voluntary, and attendance will not be recorded in personnel files, so that no one feels judged for seeking help or for declining it. The comparison between offices delays the intervention for Morristown staff for a year; this is justified because the firm cannot implement in both offices at once with its current resources, and Morristown will receive the full intervention next year whatever the results show. Finally, the firm must avoid presenting individual coping skills as a substitute for fixing the work, since that would shift responsibility for strain onto employees.

Timeline

Planning and consultation will take place in November and December, with the document cutoff communicated to clients by mid-December. Manager training and team scheduling meetings will occur in the first two weeks of January, alongside the four stress management sessions. The intervention will run from February 1 through April 30 in Princeton, with baseline surveys in both offices in January and follow-up surveys in mid-March and May. Results will be analyzed in June and presented to the partners in July, together with a decision on extending the intervention to Morristown and to the October extension season.

Leadership and Implementation

Robbins and Judge (2014) note that organizational change succeeds when leaders explain why it is needed and model the new behavior. The managing partner will introduce the intervention at the January firm meeting, partners will take their own protected days and the firm will report results at the end of the season. A small working group of two partners, two managers, two seniors and two associates will meet every two weeks during the season to fix problems as they arise.

Method for Assessing Effectiveness

Design

The firm has two offices with similar work, Princeton with 44 associates and seniors and Morristown with 28. To estimate the intervention's effect, Princeton will implement all four parts this season while Morristown continues current practice, receiving the intervention the following year. Comparing changes in Princeton with changes in Morristown, from before to after the season, separates the intervention's effect from seasonal patterns that affect both offices.

Measures

Analysis

The main analysis will compare change in exhaustion from January to May in Princeton with change in Morristown, adjusting for role and tenure. Secondary analyses will examine detachment, hindrance hours, review notes and turnover. Implementation measures will help interpret results: if protected days were often canceled, a weak effect would reflect implementation rather than the idea.

Criteria for Success

The intervention will be considered successful if, compared with Morristown, Princeton shows a meaningful reduction in exhaustion, an increase in detachment, at least a 25 percent reduction in hindrance hours and no increase in review notes. Turnover will be tracked, though with small numbers it will be interpreted cautiously.

Anticipated Obstacles

Some obstacles can be predicted. Clients who send documents after the cutoff will test the firm's resolve; partners must be willing to move those returns to extension, and the firm will track how many clients do so to judge the policy's cost. Teams with an unexpected absence may find it hard to cover a protected day; the working group will keep a small pool of seniors from the October extension team available to fill in. Managers may slip back into sending messages on protected days; the managing partner will ask managers to schedule messages for the following morning and will model that habit. Finally, some associates may choose to work on their protected day to get ahead; the firm will allow occasional exceptions but will treat a pattern as a signal that workload is unmanageable and review the team's assignments.

What Success Would Mean Beyond This Season

If the intervention works, its value extends beyond one busy season. A firm known for demanding but sustainable work would recruit more easily, keep experienced seniors who would otherwise leave for industry jobs and protect the quality of client work late in the season, when errors now rise. The October extension season, which has its own crunch, would be the next place to apply the same approach. And the method itself, measuring the problem, separating avoidable from unavoidable stressors, changing the work and evaluating with a comparison, could guide the firm's response to other people problems.

Costs

The main costs are the stress management program, about $9,000; manager training, about $6,000; and coverage for protected days, which redistributes hours rather than adding many, estimated at $25,000 in additional overtime and contract help. Against these, each departing associate costs the firm an estimated $45,000 in recruiting, training and lost productivity, so preventing two departures would cover the cost.

Limitations

Two offices are a small comparison, and they may differ in ways that affect results, such as client mix and leadership. Survey measures are self-reported and may be influenced by employees' awareness of the intervention. Client document cutoffs depend on clients' cooperation, which the firm cannot fully control. And because four parts are introduced at once, the evaluation will show the effect of the package rather than of each part. These limits argue for repeating the evaluation when Morristown adopts the intervention next year.

Conclusion

Busy season will always be demanding, and much of that demand is the kind people accept as part of a challenging profession. The firm's data show that what drives exhaustion and departure is the avoidable part: hindrances, lack of recovery and unpredictable schedules. Research on challenge and hindrance stressors, recovery, team schedule control and stress management points to an intervention that removes hindrances, protects recovery, gives teams control and builds skills. A comparison between offices, with measures of exhaustion, recovery, quality and turnover, will show whether it works.

References

Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The job demands-resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309-328. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940710733115

Kelly, E. L., Moen, P., Oakes, J. M., Fan, W., Okechukwu, C., Davis, K. D., Hammer, L. B., Kossek, E. E., King, R. B., Hanson, G. C., Mierzwa, F., & Casper, L. M. (2014). Changing work and work-family conflict: Evidence from the Work, Family, and Health Network. American Sociological Review, 79(3), 485-516. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122414531435

Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading change. Harvard Business School Press.

Podsakoff, N. P., LePine, J. A., & LePine, M. A. (2007). Differential challenge stressor-hindrance stressor relationships with job attitudes, turnover intentions, turnover, and withdrawal behavior: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(2), 438-454. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.2.438

Richardson, K. M., & Rothstein, H. R. (2008). Effects of occupational stress management intervention programs: A meta-analysis. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 13(1), 69-93. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.13.1.69

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2014). Organizational behavior (16th ed.). Pearson.

Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. (2007). The Recovery Experience Questionnaire: Development and validation of a measure for assessing recuperation and unwinding from work. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12(3), 204-221. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.12.3.204

Sweeney, J. T., & Summers, S. L. (2002). The effect of the busy season workload on public accountants' job burnout. Behavioral Research in Accounting, 14(1), 223-245. https://doi.org/10.2308/bria.2002.14.1.223