Burnout is real. Although it’s hardly limited to accounting and finance, our profession can sometimes normalize long days, heavy workloads, and a blurring of boundaries between our work lives and our personal time. What makes burnout so insidious is that it can sneak up on us. That’s why it’s important to step back and take stock of where we’re at, where we’re going, and how to realistically level set with ourselves, our colleagues, our clients, and stakeholders.
“It’s important and easier to set boundaries up front so people know about your capacity, working style, and needs from the start,” Bright (Yue) Hong, CPA, shared in a recent interview. “Once a project gets rolling and a team starts doing things in a certain way, it may be more difficult to break that pattern and set boundaries along the way.”
Bright and a panel of fellow subject matter experts will tackle burnout head-on in “Boundaries Before Burnout – Saying No with Confidence,” an EPICenter webcast airing 2–3pm ET on Wednesday, October 28. This frank discussion will feature real-world scenarios and techniques you can employ to clearly communicate your expectations, abilities, and boundaries before burnout sets in.
What is burnout, and who is at risk?
According to Psychology Today, burnout is a “state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress.” Bright expands on that definition as it relates to working professionals, clarifying that, “although some may equate it with exhaustion, detachment from one’s job is a more central component to burnout, characterized by reduced caring and increasingly negative or cynical feelings towards work.” Virtually everyone ¾ from the newest hire to C-suite executives ¾ is at risk of burnout in our fast-paced work culture. Emerging professionals who want to impress their peers, bosses, and clients can be especially susceptible. It can be hard to turn down an opportunity to demonstrate your skills or collaborative attitude. If you’ve ever said “yes” to a new obligation when you’re already spread thin, you could be setting yourself up for the crash that is burnout.
“The early signs can be physical, cognitive, or emotional,” Lauren Baptiste, CPA, observed. “Maybe you’re skipping meals, waking up in the middle of the night thinking about work, or feeling the Sunday scaries every week. The key is to notice when those things are becoming your new normal, and make adjustments before you hit a wall.” Lauren provides further examples — along with helpful resources — in the AICPA’s new PCPS Burnout Prevention Toolkit.
How can you prevent burnout?
If you’ve recognized that you’re at risk of burnout — and again, everyone is — you’ve already taken the most important first step.
Now you need to actively guard against it. That requires the self-awareness and time management skills to realistically gauge your own capacity, not just in the moment but for the coming days, weeks, and quarter. Once you’ve determined how heavy your workload is, you need to set boundaries ¾ and for some of us, that’s easier said than done.
Boundaries are hard because most of us haven’t practiced them. Like any skill, start small. Pick a few non-negotiables: picking up your kids from school, a religious obligation, a lunch break, or even stepping away to use the restroom when you need to. That last one sounds obvious, but how many of us have ignored a basic need because another meeting was starting? Each time you honor even the smallest of boundaries, you build the skill.
—Lauren Baptiste, CPA
Setting a boundary at work may feel like you’re being difficult or uncooperative. But if you’re doing so to prevent yourself from becoming overwhelmed, you’re working in everyone’s best interest, not just your own. Bright feels we need to “recognize our limitations and constraints. Sometimes it's not possible to manage competing priorities equally well and we need to accept that reality and be comfortable with it. “When workload expectations are unrealistic, it’s important to voice honest concerns and request additional resources, which helps get the project done. I think supervisors appreciate colleagues who can accurately assess capacity and resources needs, which are important to project success.”
That’s why boundary-setting is an essential leadership skill. And to develop that skill, you’ll benefit from communicating with your own leaders. For Jessica E. McClain, CPA, CITP, “Open communication with your supervisor is everything. I walk my supervisor through what's on my plate and ask for help prioritizing, so we are on the same page. I don't make prioritization decisions in a vacuum.”
How can we professionally say “no” at work?
As with any skill, practice makes progress. It may help to reframe boundaries as saying “yes” to what you can do rather than as saying “no” to what you can’t do. When Lauren is coaching clients, “I teach them a simple boundary statement: Name the problem and offer a possible solution. “For example, ‘I can’t take on another review today, but I can look at it first thing tomorrow. Does that work with the deadline?’ Most of the time, a clear alternative is accepted. If it doesn’t work for the other person, you’ve opened a conversation about what will work and find a compromise.” Whatever your boundaries are, you must be able to articulate them. As Jessica put it, you need to “be clear about what you need, because if you aren’t, people will fill in the blanks with their own assumptions. A boundary only works if people know exactly what it is.”
For more insights and actionable strategies, tune into the conversation between Lauren, Bright, and Jessica on the October 28 EPICenter webcast, “Boundaries Before Burnout – Saying No with Confidence.” You’ll learn how setting boundaries can foster leadership resilience, more realistic workload expectations, and a healthier, guilt-free work-life balance.
Register for the webcast today to prevent burnout from sneaking up on you.
About the experts
Jessica E. McClain, CPA, CITP
Jessica E. McClain is Chief Financial Officer of the American Staffing Association, where she provides financial leadership to support organizational performance. Previously, she served as CFO of Girl Scouts Nation’s Capital, overseeing financial strategy and business operations, including property management, product program, retail, and operational functions. Before entering the nonprofit sector, she spent more than 11 years in public accounting. She serves on the AICPA Joint Trial Board and the board of FAR (Finance and Administration Roundtable), and is a 2024–2025 Obama Foundation USA Leader. Her honors include the 2024 Rising Star by CFO Leadership Council, 2024 George Wallace National Achievement in Non-Profit Award by NABA, CPA Practice Advisor’s Most Powerful Women in Accounting (2023–2024), and AICPA Outstanding Young CPA Award (2021). Jessica holds a B.B.A. from Towson University and an M.S. in Accounting from The George Washington University, and is a CPA licensed in Virginia.
Lauren Baptiste, CPA
Lauren Baptiste is the Founder and CEO of Acheloa Wellness and a burnout expert focused on the accounting industry. A former Big 4 CPA with more than 13 years of experience across assurance, advisory, and tax, Lauren now works with firms and professional organizations to help high-performing professionals succeed without burning out. She is the author of the AICPA PCPS Burnout Prevention Toolkit and a frequent speaker on retention, workforce sustainability, and the evolving expectations of today’s accounting workforce. Through Acheloa Wellness, Lauren partners with firms, associations, and professional communities to address the root drivers of burnout and help organizations build environments where talented professionals can grow and sustain long-term careers. Her work and insights have been featured in CNBC, Forbes, Thrive Global, Medium, and Authority Magazine.
Bright (Yue) Hong, CPA, CFA, Ph.D.
Bright (Yue) Hong is an assistant professor of accounting at DePaul University in Chicago. She obtained her Ph.D. from Emory University after working for Ernst & Young Advisory Service in New York. Hong's research focuses on humanizing accounting through enhancing individuals’ judgments, decisions, and well-being. Her coauthored article on misconceptions of burnout was featured as Insights by the California Management Review. Her dissertation, which uses the feeling of “non-fit” to improve complex audit judgments, was published in The Accounting Review. Her coauthored research on risk management for robotic process automation, machine learning, and AI was recognized as research with societal impact and offered as CPE courses for the California CPA Society and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. She has received the Research Advisory Board Grant and the Access to Audit Personnel Grant from the Center for Audit Quality.
About the Emerging Professionals Initiatives Committee
The mission of the Emerging Professionals Initiatives Committee (EPIC) is to actively promote and support accounting and finance professionals through leadership programs, professional development resources, and volunteer opportunities. Please reach out to Lexi Weber, CPA, Senior Manager — Emerging Professionals Initiatives with any questions.