Principles Support Fulfilling Careers, Sustainable Performance, and a Resilient Profession
For the accountancy profession to thrive, everyone has a role to play—from organizations creating the right conditions and leaders setting the tone, to individuals taking an active role in building the capabilities and practices that enable them and those around them to thrive.
New global principles launched today by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) put this shared responsibility into practice. Thriving Together: 6 Principles for a Resilient Accountancy Profession provides organizations, leaders, and individuals with a practical framework for creating healthy and sustainable professional environments.
The principles reflect growing recognition across the profession that wellbeing and professional capability are complementary. Supportive leadership, sustainable ways of working, opportunities for growth, and environments built on respect and trust all influence whether people can perform at their best over time—and whether they choose to build long-term careers in the profession.
“Building a strong profession is about both attracting talented people and creating an environment where they want to stay, grow, and do their best work,” said IFAC Chief Executive Officer Lee White. “Organizations thrive when their people thrive. These principles are about being proactive and building on what the profession is already doing well and continually asking how we can do better.”
The six principles call on the profession to:
- Support Fulfilling Careers
- Embed Sustainable Ways of Working
- Promote Balance through Healthy Boundaries and Prioritization
- Build Transparency and Trust
- Ensure All Levels of Leadership Set and Model Culture
- Empower Your People
Underpinning them is a shared responsibility: organizations create the environment and conditions for wellbeing; leaders at all levels shape expectations and culture; and individuals actively build and sustain practices that enable them to perform at their best.
The work builds on IFAC’s Opening Doors: Six Principles of Best Practice to Increase Access to Accountancy Qualifications, extending the focus from how the profession attracts and welcomes talent to the experience people have throughout their careers.
The principles were developed by IFAC in collaboration with the Global Public Policy Committee, human capital professionals, professional accountancy organizations, educators, professional accountants in business, small- and medium-sized practices, early career professionals, and firms from across the global profession. They are designed to be practical and flexible, recognizing that there is no single approach to wellbeing across different people, organizations, cultures, and jurisdictions. Rather than prescribing a single model, they provide a common foundation for organizations and individuals to assess where they are today and identify opportunities to improve.
Putting the Principles into Practice
To help put the principles into action, IFAC has built a digital hub featuring wellbeing-focused resources from across the global profession. IFAC will continue to build on Thriving Together, expanding the resources available to help organizations and individuals assess where they are today, facilitate conversations, and identify practical opportunities for improvement.
Thriving Together is intended as a starting point for continued progress—helping people build fulfilling careers, enabling organizations to sustain high performance, and strengthening the resilience of the profession for the future
Access the Principles
Read Thriving Together: 6 Principles for a Resilient Accountancy Profession.
About IFAC
IFAC, by connecting and uniting its members, makes the accountancy profession truly global.
IFAC member organizations are champions of integrity and professional quality and proudly carry their membership as a badge of international recognition.
IFAC and its members work together with the Forum of Firms and other key stakeholders to shape the future of the profession through learning, innovation, a collective voice, and commitment to the public interest.