Chris Pierce, North Texas Managing Partner, RSM US LLP
From his vantage at a preeminent accountancy firm, Chris Pierce, the North Texas managing partner at RSM US LLP, spoke to Invest: about what is happening in the region, how office culture has changed, and how to best handle the vagaries of public policy.
What is RSM’s role in the accounting landscape of Dallas-Fort Worth?
RSM has two locations in North Texas. Our main location is in the Galleria Towers and our secondary location is in The Shops at Clearfork in Fort Worth. We have about 550 employees here in North Texas. For the firm, we have 80 offices in the United States, just over 17,000 employees, and more than 1,100 partners. That makes us the fifth-largest accounting firm in the United States. We focus on all things audit, tax and consulting.
What makes Dallas and Fort Worth an ideal location for the firm? What makes it a great place in which to work and live?
For us, it’s access to talent. There is a diverse talent pool and economy here, and there is a really good balance between industries. Most people who think of Texas think of cowboy hats, cattle, agriculture and energy. Realistically, it’s healthcare, technology, construction, industry, and finance. It really has a wonderful balance, and there’s great access to the rest of the United States and the world. It’s easy to live and work in North Texas.
Are there any particular challenges you’ve noticed in the region? What opportunities are you finding in those?
There are definitely challenges. Housing is an example. The lack of housing is a problem. Property valuations and rents continue to rise. The schools seem to be crowded. We continue to have a lot of movement to our area. Businesses from both the East and West Coasts are moving their employees to Texas, and more specifically to Dallas-Fort Worth. This means we have a lot of opportunities to find the talent we’re looking for, but it is harder to incentivize people to move here, which is a result of the local challenges I mentioned, like housing and schooling.
What specific services are seeing a spike in demand. What are your clients looking for when they come to you?
Right now, because the interest rate environment has remained stable over the last year or two, there are not as many new acquisitions of businesses. Businesses have been focusing more on their internal operations: seeing how they can better function, how they can better train their employees, how they can improve their systems and processes. A lot of the time the solution ends up being a technology-based solution. Sometimes that is increasing the cybersecurity environment, such as implementing an upgrade to their software and the systems they use to run their business. There’s also the planning for procurement of inventory or helping with their sales team. Those are areas that we’re spending a lot of time on: cyber, software and data improvements. A lot of the time companies will have a lot of data, but they won’t really know what the data is telling them. We have teams of people who go in and really help companies to understand the data that they have already obtained. This helps them run their business and plan for the future. It helps them to stay abreast of trends and potential pitfalls.
With the ongoing changes in workplace dynamics, how is RSM keeping up? How do you see the future of the company in terms of creating the ideal team culture?
We are trying to meet our employees where they would prefer to be met. We are trying to meet our clients where they would prefer to be. When I first started in this profession, everyone wore a suit and tie every day. Eventually, it was maybe a suit and tie from Monday to Thursday and maybe on Friday you could dress more casually. Eventually that morphed into not necessarily needing a suit and tie every day. If you are going to a bank or a law firm, wear the suit and tie because that is what is expected in that environment. But if you’re going to a factory or some other type of business, maybe it’s more appropriate to wear a short-sleeved shirt with a collar. I think we’re doing a similar thing now but more with the workplace environment. Some clients really want our teams working right alongside them collaboratively. Other companies only work in the office a couple of days a week. We’ve tried to stay pretty fluid in this area. We don’t have a proscriptive rule. We don’t have hard rules about being in the office. What we’re trying to say is: each client is going to be unique. Each employee situation is going to be unique. Let’s make sure that we’re communicating together, not only with your team but also with your client. We want to ensure that you have an expectation and that you know that this is how we’re going to work together. Hopefully that will continue to support not only what the client expectations are and what is necessary for a successful project, but also what works for our employees. Hopefully, they’re learning to be good teammates; hopefully, they’re collaborating and getting the experiences to be successful from a personal standpoint.
We’ve really tried to stay flexible in terms of being hybrid. We’re not back in the office five days per week. We’re not at home five days per week. Each week and each day might look different for different team members.
What legislation or public policy are you watching that might affect your business?
Generally speaking, it’s impossible to know what is going to happen. Right now, we may know who the candidates are for the November election, and we may know what the issues are, but they might change in a month. I really try to stay focused on the known. I try to only focus on the variables I’m aware of. If there’s potential for change, I generally take a wait-to-see approach, making decisions based on what the current environment is. If I were to be asked about this by one of my clients, I would really try to sit down with them to understand what the current state is, and what rules are in place or known to be changing, and then to try to develop a solution that fits into that framework.
