Is your best Accountant about to quit?

As a CFO or Financial Controller, experience has led you to a place where you can sense that something is in the air. Something is ‘off’ with one of your finance team members.

Warning signs

Below is a list of behaviours and warning signs to help try and avoid that unwanted and unexpected resignation letter and ensure you get ahead of an issue that could be rectified with a conversation.

• Absence from work at peculiar times for dentist/doctor appointments, food poisoning, and alarm clocks failing to go off.
• Change in attitude – disengagement is a key sign and there is often a reason for it. You may be aware, but you might not. Often people are happy to work hard for a good Accounting Manager but if things steer off course and the team member is noticeably putting in less effort, then their sights may have moved from doing their job to the exit door.
• Quality of work declines - Your once reliable, ‘never miss a deadline’ team member starts to produce work that is lacking finesse or has significant errors. This is often a good indicator that they have ‘checked out’ or their focus is elsewhere.
• Accountant dominoes - If one respected team member leaves, often others can question their own futures. At this time of transition, it is vital to understand the reasons the team member has left, address any issues if necessary that may impact other team member's job satisfaction, and communicate to the finance team what is being done to move forward positively. I.e. turn the worry into excitement.
• The cold shoulder - If your once personable and energising Finance Manager has stopped asking you how your weekend was and or engaging as normal with their team members or peers, something is likely up.
• Conversations stop when you enter the room. Not easy to spot, but if you head to the water cooler and people change the subject they were chatting about or if the team are going out for a few more coffees than usual, this could also be an indicator that something is up.

If these signs are resonating with you, think about any possible reasons why there might have been a shift in behaviour and an obvious change in the general happiness at work. Additionally, read our article here on other resignation reasons to help you identify any potential leavers.

Why do they want to leave?

Working with accounting hiring managers and job seekers every day, these are some of the more common reasons why your team members could be looking for a new job:

• A change in direct management
• Promotion of a finance team peer that feels unfair
• External recruitment of a role in the accounting team that they would have liked to have been considered for
• Lack of a career roadmap - where is their finance career heading? Is anyone discussing this?
• An unsatisfactory salary review
• Lack of recognition for effort by way of thanks (public and private). A ‘thank you’ and ‘well done’ goes a long way
• Lower-than-expected bonus
• Perceived weak leadership in dealing with troublesome or underperforming accounting team members.
• Poor communication from leadership about personnel changes, acquisitions, internal projects, mergers, etc. Especially if the change impacts the employee personally such as the company moving locations. Most rumours start because of lack of or poor communication.

What to do when you get the feeling something is up?

Foster a culture of open communication. At Richard Lloyd Accounting Recruitment one of our values is ‘transparency’ that encourages an 'open door culture'. Ensure your finance team can chat openly with you at any time and know that they won’t be negatively impacted for doing so. Some simple ideas to get you started:

• Address the elephant in the room by have an informal coffee or sandwich. Let them know you sense something is up and that you care
• Encourage openness – find the time to show that you are human and take an interest in your team members outside of month-end and other financial deadlines
• Understand and document your finance team member's career goals if you believe this is an issue. Help set out a roadmap for the next 12 months so that they know their aspirations are being taken seriously. Have regular catch-ups to review these and then reset the goals once they are achieved

Summary

As a manager, not only are you responsible for the workload of the team and the expectations on you from the executive team, but you also need to be a mind-reader and a detective. By keeping the above warning signs in mind when you are seeing some unusual behaviour in your team, you will hopefully be able to stop the resignation of your best team member before it's too late. Also, read our short article on how to improve staff retention.

For more information on this topic or other recruitment topics, speak to your Richard Lloyd Accounting Recruitment Consultant. Alternatively, give us a call or click here to email us. We assist hiring managers and job seekers every day and are happy to help.