The process of digital transformation in finance and accounting isn’t easy. To ensure a successful transformation, leaders must offer employees all the tools they can to equip them for the shift and help them commit to it. What steps can leaders take to ensure success while preparing for digital transformation?
The Importance of Leaders
Work-life balance is hard to find in the finance industry. It is a highly competitive industry and requires long, stressful work hours. For many finance professionals, the 40-hour workweek, in reality, is more like 50 to 100 hours. The compensation in the financial industry is above average. Still, what you gain in financial security, you lose out on when it comes to balancing your professional life with your personal one.
Many already-stressful finance roles also require excellent leadership skills. Burnout is very real in this sector. A survey performed by CFO.com shows that upwards of 10% of finance team members work on the weekends. That’s on top of the already stressful workweek hours team members put in, often starting early in the morning and ending late at night.
That’s why great leadership is crucial to a finance department’s digital transformation.
You can only ensure employees succeed by supporting them. Find effective ways to add new tasks to already busy schedules and equip your team members with digital transformation skills. Even with employees working around the clock, many companies hire third-party firms to help complete high-priority projects. Team leaders must mitigate burnout while reducing costs and refraining from hiring additional staff.
The Benefits of Making Sure Your Employees Succeed
There are many ways for financial firms to grow and become more successful, but chief among them is equipping your employees with more skills to set them up for success.
McKinsey research has shown that continuously training your finance team has a more significant impact than any other technological transformation. Companies that can attract and retain solid team members—ones who can upskill—have shown to increase revenue streams and cut down on costs. These are the same companies and employees that can adapt to the ever-changing technological world.
This digital workforce management approach is a boon to employees as well. As employees learn new skills, their roles change, giving them a heightened sense of importance and purpose within the organization. This is especially important for industries where burnout is very real. If your employees can see opportunities for upward mobility, they have more incentive to help you meet your short-term and long-term goals. If you don’t give your employees your utmost attention, you can expect those employees to embrace the Great Resignation and look for employment elsewhere.
Supporting Employees Through Digital Transformation
Now that you know the importance of supporting employees during your company’s digital transformation, how do you do it?
Here are four key steps to preparing for digital transformation and equipping your employees with digital transformation skills.
1. Clearly define deadlines.
The market demands transparency, speed, accuracy, and reporting within SEC guidelines. Stakeholders in public companies also expect transparency and speed regarding financial and operational results. Companies must expand executive teams, accounting teams, and finance departments with experienced staff members to ensure financial information is accurate and honest.
Make sure that tasks and deadlines are clearly defined. Any little bit of confusion can throw a wrench in a project and turn something into a more significant issue than it actually is. Having clearly defined tasks and details will mitigate the chance of miscommunication and possibly even panic.
One of the benefits of digital finance is having clearly marked calendars and project boards. Everyone on the team will have complete visibility of what projects they and their teammates are working on. This will also help boost your team’s confidence, which will only lead to a better output.
2. Improve collaboration and performance.
Another benefit of digital finance is the way it connects your team. This connectivity will allow for workflow solutions that improve team collaboration and performance.
You can get even more out of your employees by properly applying finance technologies without adding too many extra stressors to your life. This makes life easier for employees and digital workforce management teams.
3. Use tech stacks to your benefit.
Employees appreciate a transparent work environment where they have complete visibility of the inner workings of a project. And, considering the employees are a company’s lifeblood, you want to make sure they have access to transparent communication with team members and leaders while also working efficiently. With the right tech stacks in place, you can manage several large projects simultaneously.
4. Use automation to eliminate bottlenecks.
Cloud-based solutions that offer your employees complete visibility into business operations can help prevent bottlenecking and make projects run efficiently.
Your digital transformation will only be as successful as your employees. Leaders must secure buy-in from employees and equip them with the right tools to navigate this process. Set your company up for success by taking the necessary steps and supporting employees.
