November 23rd, 2011 by Rodney Lanxton
Today, I spoke to someone who works for a well-known company in Atlanta that is going through a re-organization. Throughout the company, groups are being shifted around and moved into different departments. That’s not uncommon. What is uncommon is the way the employees are being treated during this transition.
They have been told to submit an updated resume, apply for their position, and wait to receive an offer – same job, mind you, just in a different place on the org chart. They can accept the offer, negotiate, or decline the offer and leave the company. This process applies to everyone below a certain level, regardless of past performance. The person I spoke to has been with the company for over 10 years, has taken on increased levels of responsibility, and received excellent reviews.
What I find hard to believe is that, at a time when great companies are finding ways to show appreciation for their most valuable assets – their people – this company apparently doesn’t care. And then, it hit me: this company’s management is weak, is afraid to make tough decisions, and would rather lose good, committed employees than address head-on the issues with the non-performers. How else could this be explained?
Here’s what will happen; the good employees, the ones they want to keep, find themselves questioning their commitment, wondering if they are valued, harboring hurt feelings, and holding in their hand what they didn’t have before: an updated resume. My contact hadn’t updated their resume in over 10 years and, until recently, hadn’t even considered looking for another job. But now, not only are they TAKING calls from recruiters, they are MAKING calls to recruiters.
This company will lose some very good people. And the ones that stay are likely to be the very people they want to get rid of – because they don’t have options! A lot of institutional knowledge will walk out the door and be replaced by people who may not be as good, whose salaries are equivalent, and whose abilities and commitment are unknown.
Research suggests that, on average, it costs roughly $15-20k to hire a new employee. On average, it takes about 5 months to find and hire a new employee. All-in, the cost to replace just one mid-level employee is 150% of their annual salary.
Unfortunately, in this situation the damage is done. This exercise has clearly had an impact on morale, which in turn has affected productivity and is costing the company money. When the dust settles, it will be interesting to see the long-term effects. Will the quality of the staff improve? Will they achieve cost savings? Will the company maintain their “employer of choice” image? My guess is that these things could have been achieved with less organization stress, not to mention individual stress, if they had simply embraced the top performers and had the guts to implement a corrective action plan for the non-performers.
September 7th, 2011 by Rodney Lanxton
Accounting and finance professionals are more committed to their current employers and are more willing to take on extra work. A recent survey by the Corporate Executive Board’s Corporate Leadership Council suggests that discretionary effort and the intent-to-stay levels continue to rise. Among accounting and finance workers, discretionary effort increased almost 65% over the past year while intent-to-stay reached 37.6% during the first half of 2011, up from 29.7% during the first half of 2010.
This would help explain the dearth of passive candidates and the difficulty companies are having in finding talent even as unemployment levels remain high. It also tells me that employees are very motivated to keep their jobs and reinforces the theory that employees are unwilling to change jobs because “the devil they know is better than the devil they don’t know.”
The Sentio Group can help.
Read the full article at CFO.com.
July 11th, 2011 by Kurt Bonatz
With companies looking at various ways to reduce costs and increase efficiency, one way for them to increase their bottom line is to consider using project CPA’s and accountants. This may seem counter intuitive, however, leading edge companies are taking advantage of these resources to get more done while maintaining current headcount, reduce professional fees, and help with employee morale. Read more…
June 24th, 2011 by Bonnie Klein
As firms and companies fully integrate contract document review attorneys into their budgeting, now is a good time to learn how to manage those attorneys and maximize the value of your contract attorney teams. In this article, I’ll explain what the top firms are doing to get the most from their document review teams.
June 14th, 2011 by Rodney Lanxton
U.S. staffing companies created 401,000 jobs in 2010, the largest annual growth posted since the high of 428,000 set in 1994, the American Staffing Association announced today.
U.S. staffing firms deployed an average of 2.6 million workers per average business day in 2010. That’s 18.4 percent more than in 2009.
In the first quarter of 2011, average daily employment from U.S. staffing firms was 2.6 million, 14.3 percent more than in the same period of the previous year.
“Staffing employment reflects the economy,” said ASA President and CEO Richard Wahlquist. “As the economy emerged from the recession, businesses turned to flexible staffing solutions to meet increases in demand for their products and services. Even with economic growth slowing in the second quarter of this year, staffing companies continue to offer untapped employment opportunities for job seekers. Businesses have been increasingly interested in temporary-to-permanent placements.”
Source: Staffing Industry Analysts
June 3rd, 2011 by Rodney Lanxton
On May 26, 2011, the SEC’s Office of the Chief Accountant published a Staff Paper that explored the possibilities of incorporating IFRS into U.S. GAAP. This method – referred to as Condorsement, a hybrid approach to the convergence and endorsement approaches – would incorporate individual IFRSs into U.S. GAAP over a defined period of time. While maintaining the objective of avoiding differences, this would also allow the FASB to modify or supplement IFRS to offer additional protection to U.S. investors.
The framework of this multi-step plan anticipates a 5-7 year transition with the goal of minimizing the impact to U.S. issuers while still providing useful information to investors. The paper points out that this approach would potentially allow a more flexible transition as well as minimize the cost of adoption. A copy of this SEC Staff Paper can be found here.
July 23rd, 2010 by Kurt Bonatz
With so many firms vying for your business, how do you know which firm to choose when you need flexible staffing and project solutions. Click here to find out the five questions to ask before engaging a finance and accounting project staffing firm to ensure that you get the right resources.
July 10th, 2010 by Kurt Bonatz
With Wireless Industry data revenue growing significantly over the last several years, wireless companies have responded with ever growing complex systems and processes. The biggest challenge facing wireless companies is that these complex systems are more susceptible and vulnerable to leakage, intrusion and fraud. Without addressing these challenges, wireless operators are losing significant bottom-line dollars. So what are we seeing as best practices out there? Click here to find out.
June 28th, 2010 by Kurt Bonatz
When there is a crisis management situation and you have to quickly ramp up numerous accounting professionals for your claims and cost-control clean-up project, how are you going to source and select the right professionals from the hundreds of resumes submitted in response to your ads? Find out by reading my article here.