6 Tax Season Strategies to Improve Productivity and Support Your Team

Tax season puts extraordinary pressure on your organization, from heavy workloads and tight deadlines to heightened client expectations and nonstop requests. Your accounting team is working at full throttle, and their productivity can fluctuate quickly when tax season stress starts to climb.

Supporting your employees effectively throughout the accounting busy season isn’t just about helping them cope with the pressure. It’s about giving them what they need to stay focused, maintain work quality and keep their stress level in check. The 6 strategies below can help support your efforts to enhance staff productivity, boost team morale and reduce the risk of employee burnout.

6 Strategies to Ease Tax Season Stress While Elevating Team Performance

Look to the past for insight on how to drive improvement
Stay flexible about the ‘where’ of work
Align the right technology tools
Encourage staff to prioritize wellness during tax season
Focus more on productivity and quality vs. time spent
Be proactive about aligning reinforcements

1. Look to the past for insight on how to drive improvement

Laying the groundwork for a smoother tax season starts with understanding what happened during previous cycles. What challenges did your teams face last year, and have these issues surfaced before? For example, were there bottlenecks in key processes? Did employees feel overwhelmed due to understaffing? Was there confusion around roles, responsibilities or handoffs?

A retrospective analysis can help you refine workflows, anticipate needs and improve productivity. You may also want to consider setting up tax season-specific accounting KPIs (key performance indicators) to track progress and spotlight areas where additional support or clarification is needed. Useful metrics might include accuracy rates, the percentage of returns submitted without amendments, or the average response time to client inquiries.

It can also be helpful to create a tax season playbook for your accounting team to reference. Document lessons learned, outline best practices for common scenarios and highlight pitfalls to avoid. Make sure these resources evolve each year to reflect new policies, compliance requirements and team feedback.

2. Stay flexible about the ‘where’ of work

Work flexibility is a major contributor to employee satisfaction and productivity during every month of the year. But during tax season especially, giving your team members more control over where they work can help them manage stress, stay focused and maintain accuracy when workloads inevitably surge.

Supporting remote or hybrid options can offer significant benefits to your accounting staff. Quieter environments allow people to concentrate on complex tasks and reduce errors. For team members who frequently field client questions or manage documentation, fewer interruptions can make a significant difference. Remote flexibility allows tasks like document management and data entry to be handled with greater consistency and focus.

If remote or hybrid arrangements aren’t possible, consider offering flexible scheduling instead. Some employees may prefer an earlier start to tackle demanding work while they’re freshest, while others may benefit from staggered shifts that help them balance personal responsibilities. Even small adjustments to when and where people work can help your team reduce stress during the accounting busy season.

3. Align the right technology tools

Outdated or inefficient systems can slow teams down and increase stress during tax season. Equipping people with modern tools—especially those that streamline workflows and reduce manual effort—can significantly improve productivity and accuracy when deadlines are tight.

For accounting teams, this often means using cloud-based tax software that leverages automation to handle calculations, manage compliance requirements and generate reports efficiently. AI and analytics capabilities can also help reduce errors, surface discrepancies earlier and speed up review cycles.

Technology can support faster client communication during tax season as well. Tools that automate intake forms, organize documentation or surface key information quickly can reduce unnecessary back-and-forth and help accountants manage inquiries with greater ease.

When the right tools are in place—and employees are trained to use them effectively—your accounting team can spend less time troubleshooting and more time concentrating on high-value tasks.

Discover how data and analytics tools are transforming everyday work in modern finance functions.

4. Encourage staff to prioritize wellness during tax season

Tax season is demanding, and without intentional support, sustained pressure can quickly lead to heightened stress, reduced productivity and, ultimately, burnout. Encouraging team members to prioritize wellness promotes a healthier pace of work and helps maintain consistent performance.

For accounting teams, long hours, complex financial tasks and strict deadlines can stack up fast. Regular manager check-ins to address concerns, rebalance workloads or clarify priorities can go a long way toward preventing employee burnout. Team-building moments—such as an off-site lunch to mark a major milestone—can help boost morale and reinforce a sense of connection when work intensifies.

At the individual level, simple reset moments can also have a positive effect. Short breaks during peak periods give employees a chance to recharge and return to their assignments with clearer focus.

5. Focus more on productivity and quality vs. time spent

When workloads rise, it’s easy to equate long hours with strong performance. But during tax season, the real goal is sustained productivity and high-quality work—not simply spending more time at the desk.

Encouraging teams to focus on outcomes over hours helps them pace themselves, avoid burnout and deliver consistent results throughout the accounting busy season. It helps to model the behaviors you would like to see from your staff. For example:

Avoid sending late-night emails or signaling that constant availability is the expectation

Set clear priorities and realistic deadlines

Break complex assignments into manageable steps

Provide regular, timely and supportive feedback

Leading with outcomes, not hours, helps your accounting team stay energized and effective during the most challenging work period of the year.

6. Be proactive about aligning reinforcements

If past tax seasons have stretched your team to the limit, now is the time to plan for backup. Bringing in reinforcements early—rather than waiting until workloads spike—helps protect your core staff from burnout and ensures critical tasks stay on track. Flexible staffing and temporary support can also give your teams room to focus on their highest-value work.

For accounting teams, supplemental professionals during tax season and other busy periods might include experienced accountants or tax preparers who can manage complex filings, support compliance efforts or handle time-intensive tasks like reconciliations and audit preparation.

The strategic use of contract talent doesn’t just lighten the load—it also helps enhance work quality and accuracy. Extra hands for data entry, document processing or organizing supporting documentation can greatly improve responsiveness during the busiest weeks of tax season and keep morale running high.

Learn more about why a flexible staffing model is essential for businesses today.

Can flexible staffing help with other types of seasonal demands?

Yes. Flexible staffing can be a highly effective way to manage seasonal surges beyond the busiest accounting season of them all—tax season. Bringing in contract talent during the year-end close or audit season, for example, can provide your organization with targeted support that keeps your whole team productive. You can scale your workforce up or down quickly without overextending your core staff.

Need extra support for your accounting team this tax season?

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Robert Half can connect you with contract talent that’s ready to step in quickly, whether you need senior accountants, tax specialists, or other highly skilled finance and accounting professionals.

Learn more about how our flexible staffing solutions can make it easier to keep client service running smoothly during your busiest months, while keeping your staff productive and off the path to burnout.