My time at Shorts - Michelle Frost

As we bid a fond farewell to Michelle Frost this week, we asked her to reflect and to celebrate some of the numerous achievements and changes that she has influenced during her time at Shorts. So, in her own words.......

Six years, two months and two days have flown by and, at the same time, feel like a lifetime. Similarly, the Shorts I joined in 2017 seems a world away from the Shorts of now, yet also very similar. I think the main reason for that is the constant of our values. Whilst Shorts has grown in so many ways, the values might have evolved, but the principles of those values haven’t changed. It’s one of the reasons why I have found the decision to leave a place that I find so easy to be myself so difficult to make.

Payroll and The Finance Team 

On 25th September 2017, I walked through the door of our Chesterfield office, ready for a challenge. The role was newly created and necessary due to the growth of the firm and the amount of time it was taking up in the Partners’ schedules. Initially, the role took responsibility for professionalising all of our internal finances, HR, governance, and administration, bringing them up to a standard to support the huge growth over the following few years. I spent the first few months listening. Why? I started my career at the age of 15, working as an Office Junior in a small practice in Barnsley. Two years later, I left to work in industry, vowing never to work in practice again. I needed to spend that time listening to understand the differences between industry and practice and the specifics of how things worked at Shorts. Despite those differences, I implemented changes to our Finance Department so that it was run as it would be in industry, reporting to strict timetables and producing all the usual reports and management information. A lot of the changes implemented within the Finance Department are only seen by the Partners but benefit the whole firm because they can then make solid decisions based on sound information. It was a proud moment when the Finance Team won In House Finance Team of the Year at the Yorkshire Accountancy Awards. Truly well deserved.

I hadn’t been with Shorts very long when I first saw the opportunity to add value to the Payroll Department. I was eager to work with the team, but my existing workload didn’t allow for that straight away. Luckily, it wasn’t long before I was able to do a little bit of work with them, and not much later, I was able to take responsibility for the team. As with the Finance Team, we ran a whole transformation program, which has been very successful because of the dedication and hard work of everyone involved. In February 2023, the Payroll Team were shortlisted for two awards at the Yorkshire Accountancy Awards and deservedly won Team of the Year. What an achievement!

A piece about my time at Shorts wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the pandemic, which touched on every area of my role. From overseeing our finances, ensuring all of our regulatory and insurance requirements continued as usual, managing all of our health and safety and most importantly, looking after the welfare and mental health of our team in an ever-changing environment. It was so wonderful to see how distance didn’t impact how the team pulled together and how much it meant to everyone to be able to start coming back into the office once we had all the arrangements in place.

An area of my work that might seem a little dry from the outside is governance and risk. This is wide-ranging, covering not only the expected elements of regulatory requirements but also areas such as insurance policies and service-specific regulation. See, I told you it was dry! I have recently partnered with Kirstie Wilson to introduce a new audit quality standard – ISQM1. From the outside, it might seem like a boring but necessary task but it involves all my favourite things: reviewing policies and procedures and implementing changes to support the team to be able to deliver the best quality work for our clients. I really enjoyed it, and the best part was partnering with Kirstie, as we share a passion for people and change management. Thank you to her and Matty for ensuring we hit the deadline.

Our Welfare Work 

The area of my work that has had the furthest reach is HR and team welfare. I think it’s fair to say that there were no foundations to build upon in this area, which has made it all the more exciting for me. I really did start from the basics, as our team didn’t have job descriptions, and our policies weren’t reflective of the values that were actually being lived at Shorts. I am so proud of what I have achieved in this area, in particular in relation to mental health support. We’ve gone from nothing to a whole host of initiatives to support the goal of everyone being able to talk openly about their mental health and being provided with support when they need it. I qualified as our first mental health first aider about six months after I started working at Shorts, and it’s a qualification I will take into my next role. We now have five mental health first aiders, and some of the things we’ve got in place to support this are:

•  A Mental Health First Library
• Counselling sessions via Paycare
• Mental health awareness training for all Managers
• Mental health first aid awareness session for every new starter
• Webinars with Paycare and recently Andy’s Man Club
• In conversation videos with members of the team, discussing their mental health experiences
• A wellbeing app

From a wider HR perspective, we have:

• Workflows to cover every HR event, including on and offboarding, maternity and paternity leave, promotions and student support, to name a few key ones
• Signed the Menopause pledge, introduced a menopause policy, recorded an ‘in conversation’ and provided webinars
• Enhanced the basic mileage rates
• Enhanced maternity and paternity leave
• Recorded ‘in conversation’ videos to discuss autism
• Introduced a wide range of material to our website that covers Shorts as an employer; also worked with our local universities to raise the profile of Shorts
• Introduced a graduate recruitment program
• Introduced a learning and development program
• Set up the team forum
• So much more that I have clearly forgotten!
  
  

Best Employer Awards

No round up of my time at Shorts would be complete without a mention of 2022, which was an exceptionally special year, winning the Best Employer Awards at both the Yorkshire Accountancy Awards and Tolley's Taxation Awards. 

Tolley’s Taxation Awards are one of the biggest and most respected awards bodies in the UK accounting industry, where it is a major achievement to be shortlisted, let alone win, and the Yorkshire Accountancy Awards is one of the industry's most prestigious accountancy awards ceremonies, celebrating success and achievements of the best accounting firms in the Yorkshire region.  Showcasing and celebrating many of the projects that I worked on during my time at Shorts, these were very proud and special moments. 

A Big Thank You 

It’s the people that make Shorts the firm it is, and meeting and working in partnership with you all has been the greatest pleasure for me. I have to give a mention to our IT Team here, they are phenomenal. I have partnered with them on so many projects that would not have happened without them. Thank you guys!

Similarly, I have had the pleasure of working alongside Jo Grant to deliver so many initiatives to support our presence as an employer of choice. What Jo is able to achieve is beyond belief!

Thank you to my teams – Dan Kealey, Helen Milner, Jodie Hague, Sylvia Sowden #team finance. Amanda, Karen, Jess, and Lucy's #team reception. Gemma Gregory and Rachel Courtenay #team HR. Dan Dobby, Jodie Hart, Julia, June, Sharon and Sue Kinsella #team payroll

Lastly, thank you to my biggest supporter, Andy Irvine. It’s been an absolute pleasure to work for and alongside you.

Thank you Michelle, and best wishes from the team here at Shorts with your next adventure.