Across the world, hundreds of thousands of finance professionals are leaving their jobs, their organizations and in some cases the profession entirely with 60% of HR leaders significantly concerned about employee turnover, causing urgent problems for finance leaders who rely on talent to achieve critical business outcomes, a problem also called the Great Resignation

In this bite-sized episode we share with you how to categorize this attrition crisis for finance leaders & professionals as well as two key questions you can ask to ensure you do more of the right things more often.

#FinanceMentor
#SITN

Link to short Gartner video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvC8UfRA13o

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Andrew: Hi everyone. And welcome to this. Week’s Monday memo. It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these. So for those of you that have tuned in again, really appreciate you keeping the channel loop. Yeah, I know some of you reached out to us over the last year months asking, when are we going to do another episode? And I said, yeah, yeah, we will. We will. But look, the reason for delay it’s completely army, had to work through a few different challenges. I’ve never had to deal before the last few, few months.

[00:00:26] And we can touch on those, I suppose, on a future episode.

[00:00:29] Because I suppose that’s one of the benefits of what we do in the show is just sort of share what’s going on out there, how people are navigating through the craziness that’s out in front of us getting the most out of our careers, but also outside of our careers as well. So that, between it all, we’re doing more of the right things more often.

[00:00:47] we find ourselves really believing in what we’re doing and, and you know, the, the question I get sometimes it’s sort of a bit disappointing because I think working finances is a great profession to be in. I mean, we have the opportunity to influence. Decisions that our organizations and businesses and, and even it, even down to the public and governmental sectors that, that are being made to ideally improve the opportunity for society around us.

[00:01:17] It’s very meaningful work, but I do get a question a lot. It’s like, is this it is that it particularly for those that feel a bit resigned in their current roles that are not seeing that next set of opportunity. And the great thing about having done what nearly 400 episodes now is that there are people out there who’ve carved out all these different paths in accounting, finance, FP, and a really contributed loads of value to their organizations, to people around.

[00:01:45] Their families too. And, um, and if they can do it, the rest of us can do it as well.

[00:01:51] so even though we’ve been off air for a business, that’s been a hundred percent on me. Your people still want to understand what it is that we should be doing, and I’ve kept up the reading have kept up the thinking. There’s a few new projects. That all be doing to try and help listeners and, and others in finance and accounting and FPA as well.

[00:02:10] But, one of the really interesting ideas I saw an actually came up quite recently was a nice short video from Gartner. it talks about decoding, the great resignation. I said, well, look, what does that mean for financial leaders and finance professionals?

[00:02:26] I guess, triggered them produce in this sort of short term production. Again, it was only a few minutes was a lot of HR managers. I think it was like 60% of HR managers are reporting that employees are dissatisfied with their current roles and currently looking at. Um, I remember seeing a survey last year that I think it was about 70% of finance professionals.

[00:02:51] Think it was blinded. The survey were disengaged with their work weren’t committed again, which is a shame because we’ve got this great opportunity to drive meaningful value for those around us society, our families too. It’s a great, it’s a great skill set and great opportunity to contribute in our roles.

[00:03:10] And

[00:03:10] And that’s a shame. So, so how do we get that percentage lower and get more people engaged and feel like that, that they’re with the right organizations and their mission, their own work on personal goals as well. It’s not just about career. It’s about the non-career stuff as well. So walk out in a day.

[00:03:28] And what I really liked is they, they use an analogy well, why do people sell up their homes? So for those of us fortunate to have got onto the housing ladder, been able to buy homes despite the ridiculous, increasing in house prices or for those aspiring to, to own a home why’d you sell a home or why’d you leave a home and go rent another.

[00:03:51] You know, they broke down, the four scenarios, the first one as well, normally, cause the house is broken or if you’re renting the landlord failed to fix something in the house. Remember when we were renting, when we were younger with good landlords and also good ones.

[00:04:06] So something’s broken that needs fixing and that’s happening in finance and accounting. For leaders out there, our organizations are broken. It’s not offering the right work experiences for our team members does not the right promotion pots. And likewise for, I suppose, finance professionals out there.

[00:04:25] It’s meant to be an employee’s market. And it’s meant to be very hot and particularly some parts of the world, which is great because a couple of years ago finance teams are restricting opportunity. However, with the changing economic environment, it’s important to make the most of the opportunity out there as well.

[00:04:42] Just in case a tie turns just normally happens with a lot of these. Um, the second scenario that they were talking about is, well, maybe there’s nothing wrong with the work environment. Perhaps there’s nothing wrong with the house per se, but maybe the, the person’s needs change. Maybe they’ve their family’s grown.

[00:05:03] Maybe they’ve they’ve got some new kids. Are they’d like to move in a different location or something like that’s been family or whatever. I remember that was two triggers while we ended up having to move back from London to, to Ireland because the family was growing to opera, to down a traditional house, just outside London, wasn’t going to fulfill our needs.

[00:05:24] So we had to move back to be near a family as well for support, particularly if you’re working in finance, commissioning to the career there, eh, long days, long hours. That could be a consideration, even though you might love the job at the time and with great prospects and so on which, which I did.

[00:05:40] And one thing I loved about that company it was worked with at the time is they allowed me to commute from another country coming a bit later on a Monday earlier on the. So again for finance leaders maybe that’s when we need to be doing a better job of understanding our team members personal needs

[00:05:57] but it is possible to facilitate a people’s person leads when they move countries or states or whatever. Um, just like when, when they, they need to sell up or move on from renting a particular home, if their personal leads change. The other scenario, the third one that a Gartner calls out is actually, well, maybe they’re, they’re sort of.

[00:06:19] Quite happy with the type of role they’re doing, maybe they’re there enjoying the controllership role or their analyst role, or are even if they’re a bit more senior as well. But you know, it was, I was saying earlier, it’s a hot market out there. So just like in a home, you might not be looking to sell.

[00:06:38] But you might see this lovely property over there and think, well, actually I could sell this one or maybe realize some value and get a bit more, change back a bit more cash back in my pocket. Um, or my fancy do a flipping it or doing it up or whatever. So even though the job itself, the type of work you’re doing, you’re happy with.

[00:06:58] Maybe there’s been a change in the conditions of the work such there’s another company out there offering more for the same type of work. And that is a common problem. Hearing amongst finance majors is, is people are not staying very long. I, and finding that they’re getting another 10, 20, maybe even 30% increase in their, and Cassandra I’ve seen it 40% as well with some people I’ve worked with.

[00:07:21] Moving on to jobs externally and companies. Interestingly enough, I’ve heard of a couple of the companies that actually, if they ended up hiring someone at a higher salary than everyone else, then what they’re doing is they’re actually increasing the existing salaries of those at that grade, if it’s comparable work, because that’s the fair thing to do, because all you’re doing is you’re getting ahead of the attrition later on.

[00:07:44] When someone cause people talk with each other, we know. They’ll share their salary details. And when they do that, the person’s going to be well, I’ve been around here longer. I’m adding more value to the company because I’ve been long, around, longer. They’re going off, going to be happy and they’re going to be moved or worse, disengaged and end up sabotaging the work for the rest of the finance team.

[00:08:05] so something to be mindful on them. Actually, I remember leading some team members out of Brazil. I think there there’s actually a statutory reason, um, or legislation in place. You’re mandated. You have to pay people the same rule, same level, a similar salary, our same salary. There are ways and means around that to remember trying to get a few extra Bob for people, um, in certain roles, more so than the average.

[00:08:30] But, in some countries as well, that’s sort of taken care of, but I think it does apply in a lot of cases, particularly what’s going on in the UK and United States at the moment from a final. Professionals employment. Market’s very hot. And then the final, category or reason for selling off a home is that, well, some of you might’ve even heard these stories of, of people doing their careers and just wanting a bit of a step change.

[00:08:59] So like that could mean selling up your home. Or giving up, renting and going, living on a boat for a year, sailing around the world, or just, just traveling, doing the digital nomad life. And there are no, no, a couple of people doing that. And doing very well and loving it. Um, they tend to, some people are just gone full for the hug and not others or dip their toe into it.

[00:09:24] But there are people out there, finance professionals, finance leaders doing it. And I think the shift in the, what happened with the pandemic and people being able to work from home and remotely they’d been able to go away and work elsewhere. And some companies are saying. We didn’t even allow you to do that for six months.

[00:09:40] I think the reason why they say six months is for tax reasons. But again, there’s that flexibility there now where people might stay with the same employer and move on, or actually might leave that business altogether and go and go and pursue a different track. But that complete change is, is the fourth dimension that they mentioned.

[00:09:59] So again, I encourage you to watch the video. It’s just on the four minutes long. I thought it was very helpful and some very good ways to categorize the reason why people are resigning in big numbers and the big challenges there and how to perhaps start getting people to engage. so in essence, if you’re leading a team. I suppose the questions you need to be considering off the back of this are, you know, am I neglecting my team members needs my, their work needs, um, are, or am I doing a good enough job, making sure that we can provide an environment to satisfy their personal needs?

[00:10:34] How they interact with their work needs as well as the career and non-career aspects. And likewise, as a finance professional FPA, accounting, corporate finance, treasury, wherever you are sitting. Um, this is the question of always two questions actually. I’ve always put to our team members it to, to make sure that they’re getting the best out of their careers and the best out of themselves.

[00:10:59] And that’s the hint. And the question is like, do you know what your ideal career looks like for you? And do you know what your ideal non-career activity looks with you that fits in with what you want to achieve in your career? Just gotta be ecology. It has gotta be fit together, you know,

[00:11:14] and that will then determine which one of those four boxes is going to be your next move.

[00:11:18] So look, hope you enjoy the summary and how we related it to our world and finance.

[00:11:25] We have some more

[00:11:26] longer form interviews coming up. Some really great ones recorded already. So look forward to sharing those with you over the coming weeks and getting the show back up and running at waltz square away. We actually had an awful. And new listeners coming in. Um, actually we actually had some record months in terms of listeners because people were obviously accessing all those previously shared experiences and the back catalog we have as that we’ve nearly 400 episodes now.

[00:11:52] So highly encourage you to, to engage with those. And also the new stuff we’re bringing out in the next few weeks but thank you for tuning in today. Really appreciate your support. We really appreciate it. When you get the word out there, let people know that we’re back. If you know that that they were listening in, or even when you recommend our show to new listeners, we’re on all the major platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, YouTube, Spotify, and Amazon music.

[00:12:17] And the more of us that share what’s working well and what we could do better. That means the more of a situation, more of the right things. More often that benefit us in our career, our work, and also what’s going on outside of our careers or non-career activities as well. So, We w we don’t have to make that question.

[00:12:31] Is there a set, so it’s not just the case of surviving. Our careers is actually thriving in our careers and outside of our careers as well.

[00:12:38] so until next time, take care of yourselves and let’s keep on building our strength in the numbers

[00:12:43]