The pandemic forced every tax practice to make decisions about how their teams would work, and years later, those decisions are still shaping culture, hiring, and talent development. Whether you've landed on fully in-office, remote, or somewhere in between, the evidence from corporate tax departments points to a few consistent truths worth considering.
The In-Office Case
Some practices went fully in-office and never looked back. The short-term cost was real; some people left, hiring got harder, and the candidate pool narrowed. But for those who held the line, the long-term payoff was cultural alignment and a self-selecting workforce that wanted to be there. No return-to-office whiplash, no renegotiating expectations. The medicine was taken once.
The deeper argument for in-person work is apprenticeship. Junior staff hear senior people think out loud, not just deliver conclusions. Mid-level professionals watch how leadership frames issues with clients and stakeholders. Small questions get answered in the moment instead of waiting for a scheduled call. For inventory-heavy and advisory-focused practices especially, that informal transfer of judgment is hard to replicate on a screen. The concern many leaders share is that a generation of tax professionals who came up during the pandemic never received that kind of deep technical coaching, and the gap is showing.
The Remote and Hybrid Reality
At the same time, fully remote and hybrid models have proven that the work gets done. Returns file, deadlines close, audits move. Many practices discovered that productivity held or even improved when teams went distributed. The trade-off was spontaneity, that ability to pull someone into a conversation at the last minute, to walk the floor and sense how people are doing, to develop talent through proximity.
The practices that make remote work actually work are the ones treating communication as a discipline, not an afterthought. They schedule intentional touchpoints, they create structured opportunities for rising staff to present, take on stretch assignments, and be seen by leadership. They don't assume the connection will happen on its own.
What Stays True Across All Three Models
Regardless of your structure, a few things hold across every approach. Clarity beats ambiguity every time, because people can adapt to almost any model if the expectations are consistent and the reasoning makes sense. Talent development doesn't happen automatically in any setting; it has to be engineered deliberately. And the professionals who advance, whether remote or in-person, are the ones who communicate proactively, ask thoughtful questions, and look for ways to contribute beyond their immediate task list.
The technical judgment required in tax work, knowing whether something is correct, understanding the nuance behind a position, advising a client on a gray area, cannot be outsourced to AI or a third party. Building that capability in your team requires intention, whether your people are down the hall or across the country. The model matters less than the commitment behind it.
Christine Gervais is a licensed CPA, using her skills to help businesses grow and achieve their fullest potential. Christine has a Master’s degree in accounting from Southern New Hampshire University in addition to holding her CPA license for over a decade. Notably, Christine is a nationally recognized speaker providing education to other CPAs on how to best serve clients as well as instruction on a wide variety of topics for business owners on how to maximize success. Christine prides herself on the value she can bring to clients with her extensive tax knowledge and provides strategic, forward-thinking financial strategies to help clients grow. When not behind her desk, you can find Christine spending quality time with her daughter and stepson or tending to the family’s excessively loved farm animals.
Subscribe to the TPN Newsletter!
Like what you're reading?
Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and we'll deliver content like this directly to your inbox.