Beyond the numbers with Grant Thornton: Listen now
Recent events have put the spotlight on issues concerning governance and integrity within the professional services industry. From our perspective, these topics have always been critical considerations. Accounting firms rely heavily on public confidence in their work, and we are conscious of the need to continually reinforce professional integrity with our people while improving our systems to monitor and manage quality and compliance.
With governance being a significant issue for the sector, we can report the public unlisted company structure employed by Grant Thornton, governed by the Corporations Act, is serving us well. Grant Thornton has three independent board members, including an independent Chairperson of our Board and all its committees. We are independently audited, with our transparency reports and audited financial statements publicly available.
As the Australian Treasury has proposed mandatory sustainability reporting from 1 July 2024, there is a growing demand for organisations to provide transparency on their commitment to ESG and sustainability, as well as disclosure of the non-financial impacts of their business activities. These changes to standards mean there is now a requirement for auditors to respond to the rapidly developing landscape of sustainability reporting. This has prompted a fundamental change in the skills of our people and technology to build appropriate processes and develop capability around the data required to support disclosures, and how to present the required information. We must work quickly to navigate through the new process of educating clients on collating the right information, building appropriate processes and for our clients to develop capability around the data required to support disclosures, and how to present the required information.
Education and embracing technologies is key to success in this ever-evolving audit landscape. At Grant Thornton, we believe that every audit is underpinned by quality and our firm’s CARE values employed by our people. We foster curiosity, strategic thinking, and encourage our people to implement technologies such as process automation, artificial intelligence (AI) tools, data analytics, and utilising data effectively within audits to build on their skills and increase quality. We provide appropriate safeguards and limitations over the use of these technologies and provide support for their acceptable use and functionality through our digital assurance team and regular education.
We believe the industry should explore and embrace audit innovations and new ways of doing things, including AI and data transformation, so that industry regulations and standards are met more efficiently. This creates room for broader, commercial thinking in our people.
We are committed to supporting professional development within a culture that values the wellbeing of our people. A key threat to the sustainability of our profession is the future supply of talent, and the effect that people shortages may have on the workload for audit teams in particular.
We actively manage this risk within our own team through market-leading workplace initiatives that enhance our people’s wellbeing, including flexible work options and the extended trial of the 9-Day Fortnight. We also advocate for broader changes to the regulatory environment that may help ease the burden of workload and busy periods on members of our profession.
At Grant Thornton, we believe we are making a concerted effort to listen to our people and ensure we are addressing these workload issues, alongside other reputational issues facing the profession.
Our wellbeing initiatives also help attract and retain highly skilled and diverse talent ranging from Associates to Partners and within our support teams. We actively promote firmwide diversity and inclusion initiatives, including the Gender Equity Network, which has seen a tangible increase in the number of women in leadership roles throughout the firm, as well as creating an inclusive environment for everyone. As a result, we have seen an uplift in our people’s engagement and satisfaction, which has in turn led to better client service and growth across all parts of the firm. We expect this growth to accelerate throughout FY24.
Over the past 18 months, Grant Thornton has undertaken a successful repositioning in the market reinforcing that as a mid-tier firm, it can combine the resources and skillsets of larger firms – including expert Partners and specialist teams – with the accessibility and agility of smaller firms. Grant Thornton will continue to be a successful audit firm by investing in our ESG capability, and our CARE for our people and clients, while fostering a culture of collaboration and inclusiveness. We are also exploring the use of new technologies and data analytics to improve quality and deliver meaningful results for our clients.
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