The Rise Of The Remote Finance Worker, Or Not?
Anders Liu-Lindberg
Leading advisor to senior Finance and FP&A leaders on creating impact through business partnering | Interim | VP Finance | Business Finance
The story continues to develop on Instagram so if you want a look behind-the-scenes of BPI and entrepreneur life you can check it out by clicking here.
This is the channel "Trends in Finance and Accounting". 49,000+ people have subscribed! Click "Subscribe" to receive a notification and e-mail when I publish new articles on this channel every Thursday.
The crisis has sent millions of workers to work from home. Despite people are now returning to the office it raises questions about the future of work. Will “remote” become the new norm or will we see a return to office-based life? Finance, like any other function, must consider how this will impact the way we work in the future.
During the crisis, Finance has been busier than ever doing forecasting, scenario modeling, and finding cash all while working remotely. We spoke to many senior finance leaders whom all felt they had successfully led their companies through the crisis in a remote work environment. Would this further fuel the belief that Finance could even go fully remote in the future? It is certainly tough to dispute the case but there is more to it than meets the eye.
The pro’s and con’s of a remote finance function
To answer the question of “remote or not” let us further examine some pros and cons of finance professionals working remotely.
Of course, these could vary depending on the role of the individual finance professional. In the above, we have mostly considered FP&A, business controlling, and business partners. As you can see it mostly boils down to the need for human interaction or not. That easily becomes a larger question of what our end game is for the finance function. Efficiency or effectiveness?
Remote work gives more opportunities for labour arbitrage. In addition, if we can further complete the digital transformation, we have a significant opportunity to continue the downsizing of Finance. This creates a very efficient finance function with few human interactions. You can wonder though what the impact on the wider business except for some cost savings will be.
In another version, remote work gives the opportunity to work alongside our stakeholders rather than being tied down by a physical location in the finance team. In addition, completing the digital transformation helps free up time for work that matters. It will also enable us to develop even deeper insights through advanced and predictive analytics. This creates a very effective finance function (and perhaps even more efficient too) with the potential to be very impactful on the wider business.
It is still fair to ask if everything that makes Finance effective could not also be done fully remotely? The answer is that it could, but we would simply be less effective. Let us give a few examples.
Some of the above you can make it a priority to participate in even as a remote worker, but you will never get the full benefit of these interactions. The loss of knowledge could be significant, and you would not be as effective as you could doing your job.
We do not need to choose between remote work and office work
Still, it does not have to be an ultimate choice between remote work and office-based work. In many instances, remote work simply means “work from home” where most would have the option to go to the office a few days per week. This is the perfect opportunity to take a blended approach.
There are real benefits to work remotely and with actively planning we could get the best of both worlds. Simply bundle meetings and lunches on office-based days and save your deep insight building for remote days. Of course, you can continue with remote meetings through video as you have done during the lockdown.
Finance must tap into both remote and office-based work since both hold significant upside potential. The challenge then becomes how to institutionalize it in the way of working. All things equal though let us try to take the best from the pre- and the post-pandemic world when creating the finance function of the future.
What do you plan to do with remote work in the future? Is it an occasional option, a standard choice some days of your week or will you go fully remote? If you are a leader what is your message to your team? Will remote work become the new way of working or will you continue using a combination? The trend of remote work is surely here to stay so let us ensure we make the most of it also in Finance!
If you like what you read and would like to make a voluntary donation to support my continued content creation you can use one of below options. All content continue to be provided for free!
For international donations please transfer via PayPal here: PayPal.Me/liulindberg
For Danish donations please transfer via MobilePay on 2926 6410
You can read articles from my previous series "Crisis Management for Finance Professionals" below. Next week we tackle the topic of "Digitalization post the crisis" and ask the question "Will Finance become 100% digitalized?".
15 Tips For Finance Professionals When In The Middle Of A Crisis
My 6 Finance Career Lessons From Times Of Crisis
30 Ways Finance Can Restore Shareholder Value Post A Crisis
How To Survive The Crisis Without Layoffs While Cutting Spend
Lost Your Job Due To Coronavirus? Here's How To Find A New One!
A Global Temperature Check Of Finance And Accounting
How Finance Gets Ahead Of The Crisis
How Finance Runs Crisis Performance Management
How Finance Can Create Human Capacity To Survive The Crisis And Beyond
How Finance Can Master Change In Times Of Crisis
Is The Budget Too Big To Fail Even In Crisis Times?
For more tips to help you through the crisis you can find more inspirational articles below.
How A LinkedIn Ad Turned Into To 10 Million Dollars
4 Reasons Why No One Implements Best Practices
Why Risk Management Is Supposed To Be Boring
3 Reasons Your Budget Is Already Outdated
How Finance Can Help When Business Is Bad
Who Holds The Key To Successful Cost Savings?
Don't Explain Yesterday, Predict Tomorrow!
Finance Needs A 20/20 View On The Business
Finance People - Adopt A Growth Mindset Or Die!
How Finance Masters Their Working Capital
How Business Partners Keep A Plan On Track
Model Me This. Model Me That. FP&A Can Model You Anything!
If you want to become a better business partner you should consider taking our online course "Business Partnering Explained - Value Creation Unlocked" to get a better handle on the role. It's accredited for 5.5 CPD hours.
Anders Liu-Lindberg is the co-founder, COO (Chief Operating Officer), and CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) at the Business Partnering Institute and owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with more than 8,500 members. I have ten years of experience as a business partner at the global transport and logistics company Maersk. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner” and a long-time Finance Blogger on LinkedIn with 45.000+ followers.
Changing the business world one analytical professional at a time I Unlocking connected leadership potential I Professional Speaker I Author I NED I Chair of Audit
4 年One can counter many of the disadvantages with proper team engagement sessions virtually Anders Liu-Lindberg. It needs the leader to be forward-thinking and willing to invest time in virtual team dynamics. Great provocative post.
Open to a new challenge I Passionate to contribute to business value creation
4 年A great point, Anders! If we believe that Finance is to drive business and add tangible value (and not to be stuck in a traditional transactional role hidden behind our screens) I think that there is a huge potential for us in meeting people at lunches, coffee machines or simply in a corridor. We can get so much from those informal interactions in terms of understanding business, our customers, what they need, what they issues are, etc. Though I think that a balanced approach could be a good scenario it should be our priority to meet business people as often as possible. If we all start moving home we will most likely be less effective.
Dale Farm Chief Financial Officer
4 年Great article Anders Liu-Lindberg.. Whilst we can work productively from home, i sense a balance of office and home working is optimal. Office working particularly beneficial when involved in business partnering activities and building team engagement. As a minimum i suspect desk, people ratios will reduce.
Finance Business Partner | Writer | Geek
4 年Anders great article. I'm for a hybrid approach as well. Over here, I'm not sure people feel psychologically safe opening up in virtual meetings on issues within finance. One company I know, has split its team into remote workers and non remote workers and I think CFO's, managers, etc will have an added challenge of being able to motivate and measure remote workers. Its going to be difficult but surely not impossible.
Senior Vice President, Commercial Relationship Manager
4 年I work for a community bank outside Washington DC and have not received any communication regarding the overall productivity rates. However based on observations, and not taking into consideration the economic conditions, I can make the following statements: 1) Early on I noticed a decrease in productivity. This was due to the lack of hardware most of us have at home compared to the equipment we have in the office. As employees adjust to a home office equipment has been upgraded. This has improved productivity. Also most of my co-workers have horrible daily commutes and in some cases they added 3 hours a day by not having to sit in a car. 2) The bank provided the software that permits us to work remotely. This way I have access to files and other bank systems. This access however does create risk that information will be compromised. To mitigate this risk our IT department is taking steps to improve security and increasing awareness. 3) I do however miss the daily face-to-face conversation with colleagues and supervisors. This has slowed my ability to accomplish tasks. With this said, I'm still not convinced that remote work will work in the long run. A hybrid may work however. It appears we are still a few months away from a back to the office decision so I still have time to analyze the data.