In April 2023, FSR – Danish Auditors published a report in collaboration with the analysis and consulting firm, Epinion. The comprehensive report was named United about the Future Audit Industry (Fælles om Fremtidens Revisorbranche), and emphasized that firms across the Danish audit industry face vast challenges related to attraction and retention of qualified employees. Furthermore, the report highlighted some of the underlying drivers related to these challenges.

The report, published in April 2023, showcased that - broadly speaking – the main challenge is two-sided. Whenever employees leave the industry, the firms have an extremely challenging time to attract qualified talent to replace these employees. In turn, this means that it is necessary for the remaining auditors to handle more and more work tasks.

In fact, seven of ten audit firms in Denmark experience significant challenges related to attracting state-authorized public accountants, and approximately an equivalent amount of audit firms is struggling with attraction and retention of employees with a master’s degree in auditing, a bachelor’s degree within business administration, and/or a graduate diploma within business administration. These challenges are only expected to be growing in the future.

Even though the audit industry offers good career and development opportunities, the industry as a whole does not succeed in attracting and retaining enough talent. From the report, it has emerged that challenges related to missing flexibility, work/life balance, and heavy workload cause individuals to quit the industry and take on professional challenges in alternative industries.

The Culture Academy is an initiative fostering focus on some of the challenges emerging from the report. Not only is the Culture Academy an opportunity for members of FSR – Danish Auditors to get insights from experts on various topics; it is also an opportunity to meet to discuss the future audit industry in Denmark with fellows from the industry.

The Culture Academy was launched in September 2024 with the aim of increasing the focus on leadership, diversity, and alternative ways of organizing. One of the main goals is to strengthen Danish audit firms’ ability to attract and retain an increased number of employees – now and - particularly - in the future.

Overall, the purpose of the Culture Academy is to create a foundation from which our members can bring new insights on various topics centered around leadership, diversity, and alternative ways of organizing into their own organizations. In turn, it is our ambition to lift the overall working culture within Danish audit firms to increase audit firms’ ability to attract and retain the necessary talent.

The Culture Academy is developed in cooperation with the board of FSR – Danish Auditors as well as an advisory group consisting of various key individuals from our member organizations, e.g. HR professionals and partners. We are continuously in dialogue with the advisory group on further initiatives in context of the Culture Academy.

There is a critical high demand for auditors across the industry. Since auditors play a crucial role in ensuring trust to both financial reports as well as sustainability reports (from 2025) in the Danish society, the demand for auditors is only expected to be increasing. Thus, it is critical that action is taken now.

Until now, three modules have been hosted in which subject matter experts, within the given themes of the modules, have been teaching:

• October 2, 2024: Get Ready for Change
• October 24, 2024: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Workplace
• November 12, 2024: Leadership across Generations

During the modules, the participants get the opportunity to discuss challenges, opportunities, and specific examples on the topic of the given module. On a recent module, the participants, for instance, had an interesting discussion on why fewer women choose to do the state-authorization as public accountants even though they are offered same support as their male colleagues. The discussions during the various modules include participants from different member firms of FSR – Danish Auditors.

Christina Bagge, HR Director at Grant Thornton in Denmark, has participated at the three modules during the Fall 2024 alongside partners from Grant Thornton in Denmark. Christina has explained that the goal of participating in the modules at the Culture Academy for her and her colleagues, is to gain new insights and to get to have valuable discussions with fellows from the industry.

“Within the audit industry in Denmark, we have a common interest in being able to attract and retain qualified and motivated employees with a genuine understanding of an audit’s purpose,” Christina argues and further elaborates:

“At Grant Thornton, it is valuable for us to be able to meet with fellows from the industry to share insights and discuss challenges and opportunities in-depth. On the second module, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Workplace, we had valuable discussions on potential barriers to become state-authorized public accountants. The lack of state-authorized public accountants is not only an industrial challenge; it is a societal challenge. Why is that? Because the state-authorized public accountants play a critical role in ensuring trust to financial reports as well as sustainability reports.”

For the Spring 2025, FSR – Danish Auditors is planning to re-launch the modules at the Culture Academy from the Fall of 2024 to ensure that we address all our member firms across Denmark. For the Fall 2025, new, exciting modules are in the pipeline.

The introduction and implementation of the initiative has not been without challenges. As stated above, the auditors experience an increasingly workload, which means that we face a challenge in communicating the relevance of the content at the Culture Academy. Since the main target group of the Culture Academy is individuals from our member firms with management or leadership responsibilities, we at FSR – Danish Auditors have an extremely important task in convincing the busy auditors that the resources spent at the Culture Academy pursuits return. 

Until now, there has been an increasing number of participants at the modules hosted through the Culture Academy. What we observe is that participants tend to bring more colleagues to modules, and we also observe that more and more actors within the industry have a genuine interest in developing a healthier working culture across the audit industry in Denmark.

At FSR – Danish Auditors, we believe that the initiative of the Culture Academy is a way of encouraging and supporting the change that the industry itself demands. The Culture Academy arose from a demand from the industry itself, and as one united industry, we are working for the audit industry of tomorrow.

We are excited to see where how the Culture Academy will be developing in the future, and we are, of course, curious to get insights from our international fellows. Thus, there is only left to ask: Do PAO’s from elsewhere in the world have initiatives similar to our Culture Academy? If yes, we would love to learn more. If no, have you considered developing one? Please reach out to us at gateway@ifac.org to share your experiences.

^{Photo credit: Oleksandr P}