Restructures have a bad reputation and for good reason. They are usually associated with months of uncertainty followed by the termination of staff, damaging office culture in the process.

There is another way. A culture of putting staff first in a restructure can have a range of benefits: more engaged employees, reduced turnover and higher ROI.

But what does a staff-centred approach look like?

Giles Pearson FCA from New Zealand-based firm Accountests recently helped out Hancock Askew in the US, with a restructure of one of its teams. The firm prioritised staff throughout the process and used testing to guide staff into new roles, achieving positive outcomes for staff and boosting productivity.

Restructuring for happier staff

Hancock Askew is a medium-sized accounting firm with about 300 employees, which was acquired by Baker Tilly in February 2025. Prior to the acquisition, the firm had a problem with the client accounting services (CAS) team, which does monthly reporting for mainly SME clients.

The team had bloated in size to 35 staff as a result of client demand, however its structure had not changed from when the team was much smaller. As a result, everyone was doing a little bit of everything, with no clear lines of responsibility.

Partner and leader of the team, Rebecca ‘Becky’ Mowen, could see what had made the team successful in the past, would not make them successful in the future.

“Every partner had their own way of doing things, so it wasn’t creating a consistent client experience,” Mowen says in a webinar How to Optimize Your CAS Team: Lessons From Hancock Askew’s Reorganization. “Employee turnover was [also] a risk if we didn’t make any changes, because they weren’t happy.”

Mowen and her HR team measured metrics like revenue per employee, average bill rates and revenue per client for the team, and compared it with other firms. They were sitting in the mid-range, when they wanted to be in the top 10%.

To achieve the top 10%, it was decided the CAS team would be split into three: monthly reporting, onboarding and client management. The new structure would lighten the load for staff, provide them with a clearer career path, and improve the overall client experience.

But how would they decide who went where?

Pearson, who spent 18 years as a partner at PwC in New Zealand, says leaders in Mowen’s position often base their staffing decisions on personal development plans, anecdotes or recommendations.

Some companies may use a personality test. The most common Pearson sees used by accounting firms are DISC and Predictive Index, but these are general tests. Accountests offers tests specific to the accounting field, including the Accountants Personality Profile Questionnaire (APPQ).

“We’re the only ones in the world offering testing with an accounting focus,” Pearson says.

Hancock Askew decided to use Accountests’ bookkeeper test and the APPQ to assess team members and determine which of the three areas in the new structure suited each person best.

Transparent testing and communication

With a time limit of 40-minutes, the 40-question bookkeeper test assesses technical ability from processor level, up to senior bookkeeper and controller level. Based on a UK Association of Chartered Certified Accountants study, the APPQ assesses four key areas considered critical in modern accounting: ethics, relationships, thinking and coping skills.

Mowen and her team communicated to staff that the tests were going to help deliver more consistency in their jobs and create a better work environment. On a personal level, the tests would help with their career paths and identify areas where further upskilling may be required. No one would be losing their jobs or taking a pay cut.

To maintain transparency, Mowen arranged weekly meetings where staff could ask anonymous questions, which would be answered in follow-up Q&A sessions.

Pearson thought Hancock’s staff-first strategy was exemplary.

“It’s a challenge saying to staff: ‘We want to test you to decide which of these jobs is better for you’. People are going to get nervous and worry they’re going to lose their jobs or be shown they’re not good at them,” he says.

“[Hancock Askew] got their leaders to do the testing first. That was a real winner because staff saw the results didn’t have to be perfect.”

Staff from Hancock’s different locations were asked to join a Teams meeting and complete the testing together at the same time, so any issues could be addressed immediately.

On receiving the test results, Mowen and her team learned who was strong in technical ability, who preferred relationship time with clients and who liked to work in teams or independently, among other skills and preferences. They then matched people to the three work streams.

Results were shared with individuals in one-on-one meetings. Some staff were surprised about their results.

“We went through their results and looked at their profile and asked them, does this make sense to you? Some people had no idea they were being adverse or too harsh in situations where they needed to soften their approach with clients,” Mowen says.

“[The testing] revealed some blind spots for people that I think have been really valuable for us to work together as a team, so that they can then share with their team members or change their approach.”

Staff were informed in July 2023 and began their new roles in January 2024. The half-year gap gave staff enough time to shift around work and undertake any relevant training in preparation.

One year on, Mowen reports team culture is strong and aggressive growth goals have been achieved.

“Having people know their main job has created a cohesiveness within the team. They know they have other people to support them. So, it’s been a big win,” she says.

“Taking a lot of the administrative tasks off of our team members, our managers are able to push down some of their work to some of our seniors and they have more time to spend working with the onboarding team to get clients served faster.”

How not to restructure

Katriina Tähkä, who heads up Sydney HR consultancy A-ha, A Human Agency, has witnessed the opposite to Hancock Askew’s staff-centred approach.

Last year, she says a company of approximately 50 staff decided in a panic that they needed to undergo a major restructure. Management held an all-staff meeting and assigned each staff member to one of four colour groups.

One colour was told they were staying on, one colour was told they were only needed for the next six months, another colour was told to leave immediately and the final colour was told the company did not know what to do with them.

“Companies must evolve, that’s just real life, but how can you treat people like that?”, says Tähkä.

“If you know your company has to evolve, why wouldn’t you adopt an evolutionary mindset and when changes need to be made, they are less of a surprise? Then you can involve your people in your thinking and the company’s evolution the whole way.”

Tähkä says restructures are typically a cost-cutting exercise. Engaging staff in the restructure process could produce unforeseen solutions, instead of the default option of slashing the headcount.

One example is the AMP demerger in 2003, which she was part of. It involved a dramatic reduction in business scope, from a global footprint to an Australian one.

Throughout the process, leaders were open and transparent, says Tähkä, and they invited staff to contribute ideas. One idea was for staff to work three or four days per week instead of five, eliminating the need to cut jobs. With the staff’s blessing, management implemented the idea.

“They were able to preserve jobs and people voluntarily took a pay cut because they were involved in the decision-making process. As a result, employee belief in the company post restructure was at an all-time high,” Tähkä says.

A weapon for talent

In addition to restructuring benefits, an employee-centric culture can be a point of differentiation for small and medium accounting firms in the war to attract talent, says Tähkä.

“You’re not going to compete on salary, so what are you going to compete on? On the way that you treat people, and on becoming human-centric and people-focused,” she says.

“But if people come in the door and they don’t experience it, they’ll know it was just marketing. The gen Xers [aged 45 to 60] and gen Ys [millennials aged 29 to 44] are super savvy. They’re going to prefer to work somewhere where they’re made to feel genuinely valued and respected.”

According to HR consultant Deb Travers-Wolf, the key to retaining and attracting talent is healthy levels of trust and safety between management and staff, which is particularly important during a restructure.

“If you start by doing something to staff rather than with them, you lose trust and safety,” says Travers-Wolf, who has worked with companies in the US, Europe and Australia.

“There’s enough research that tells us when you reduce psychological safety, it may improve over time but it won’t return to the same point at which it started. Most leaders don’t realise these short-term decisions have long-term business impact.”

The worst-case scenario she has seen is when leaders ask people to open up and contribute, then because of time or other pressures, ignore what was offered or potentially use it against people down the track.

Leaders who are successful in avoiding this pitfall have often learned to be humble the hard way from prior decisions that didn’t produce the result they had hoped for, Travers-Wolf says.

“If a leader comes from the mindset of having all the answers, they’ll reduce the collective intelligence that trust and safety create. And that has hardcore business value in today’s world.”