With unexpected and planned turnover in the workforce, a prepared organization is a well-armed one. This article will examine some tangible steps that can facilitate an orderly transition of tasks and help ensure that recurring and less frequent responsibilities are addressed. Our actionable suggestions will focus on how to streamline processes and the importance of job descriptions and staffing assignments.
Effective succession planning can reduce organizational risk, increase employee satisfaction, enable business continuity, and lower costs for hiring and training. Specifically, within an organization’s finance function, this is critical because:
- Uninterrupted workflow progress supports the timeliness, integrity, and accuracy of reporting results.
- In the event of any departure, it is important that there is a continuity of the tasks that outgoing personnel had performed.
- Proactively managing toward an environment of business continuity helps a finance department maintain cross-departmental relationships and facilitate cross-organizational trust in the department’s team and its ability to produce meaningful and actionable reporting for decision making.
After developing a strategic succession plan, organizational leaders must consider how to handle the dynamic of both personnel needs and business requirements to help mitigate these impacts.
Streamline Processes
Evaluating the procedures employed to help achieve accounting policy objectives should be a routine exercise. This can help ensure that the processes being performed are consistent with policy goals, and that what is documented is truly reflective of the tasks performed by staff.
In streamlining workflows, an organization should consider the following:
- Forvis Mazars.