It’s a paradox. One moment you have your finance team aligned with your company’s needs and then you decide to make an acquisition that will help your company increase performance and decrease costs. At the same time, your controller leaves for a new position and HR estimates that it will be 3-4 months to hire a new person, let alone weeks getting them up to speed. You could promote the assistant controller, but she has no experience with acquisitions or translating accounting information into business terms and impacts.
While the scenario above is all too common, talent problems like these all too frequently happen to growth companies. According to a 2016 survey by Robert Half, 35% of executives said that staffing (finding, hiring, retaining and training) continues to be the most significant business issue they currently face.
Even a slight company directional change can cause the finance team to become overtaxed and unable to meet the financial requirements. As a small company, you can’t afford to have someone on your finance team be overqualified or under qualified. If they are overqualified, you run the risk of losing them because they are performing transactional work and become dissatisfied. If they are under-qualified, they won’t have a full-range of skillsets to optimally support strategic planning, provide financial reporting and drive operational improvements.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop is not the way to run your company. To support company growth, we recommend that all companies follow these guidelines for your finance department.
- Routinely audit your existing financial team’s skillets to ensure they can meet both your existing and forecasted needs.
- Retain key personnel by carving out optimal roles and career paths to ensure ongoing loyalty and maximum productivity.
- Outsource financial activities to address skillsets gaps, meet immediate needs and save financial capital.
Here at Consero, we believe that growth and change should be the standard. We believe that your finance department should be able to scale and adapt with the right people. Financial activities should be in a proactive rather than reactive. Most of all, your company’s evolution should not be constrained by your finance department.
