Work Life Balance - No thanks, we're accountants

Work Life Balance is a significant issue today for all companies. Work Life Balance allows for increased retention and morale, and is an important sales pitch for hiring new recruits, especially Generation Y employees.

Can Work Life Balance be a reality in Financial Reporting Groups’ of companies?

Here are some issues going against Work Life Balance in Financial Reporting Groups’:

1) Month end. Quarter end. Year end.

Employees within a Financial Reporting Group face these deadlines and can basically forget vacations, weekend plans and family time. How can you have Work Life Balance in a Financial Reporting Group where you have these recurring deadlines?

2) Managers with old school training.

Many managers just assume that Work Life Balance is not an option within a Financial Reporting Group. They assume this because they were trained this way, just as their managers before them. Being a workaholic was a requirement for success in Financial Reporting Groups’ or in accounting firm (in many cases it still is). "Work smarter, not harder" is not a concept accepted by many FR professionals.

So what is the solution?

Hiring enough people to get the job done would be an appropriate solution. This is not a priority in many finance groups for many reasons. One reason is that Finance is not looked at as a value add group - it is managed as a cost group. (This topic specifically will be the subject of another blog).

Progressive companies are realizing that Work Life Balance is an issue that needs to be addressed. We are seeing companies that have implemented an overtime compensation policy in their Finance Group. This is an excellent tool to measure the real cost of deadline oriented work. Progressive Finance Managers measure the overtime as a way of compensating staff with flextime or additional vacation during off-peak periods. It is also an effective measure which allows for the necessity for hiring BEFORE your staff gets fed up and leaves you.

While Work Life Balance in a Financial Reporting Group may be difficult to achieve, for companies that care about their employees, it is possible. Where would you prefer to work?