How to Nurture Skills and Knowledge Of Accounting Team
How to Nurture Skills and Knowledge Of Accounting Team
Accounting and bookkeeping are essential and integral parts of any business organization. For every business to sustain and achieve growth, its employees must continue to learn and grow. It is possible only if the companies keep their manpower motivated and guide them through the training to acquire new skill sets, enhance their current knowledge base, and be aware of the latest trends and changes in their industry.
Specifically, for the staff working with the accounting and bookkeeping department, one might think that there is no need to invest in the training and development of such employees as they are not directly working towards the company’s production operations or contributing to the top line.
We would disagree with this thought, and the reason is that no front office can run effectively and efficiently without the support of the back-office division. Suppose the accountants are unaware of the amendments in the accounting principles or the latest tax provisioning requirements of the government. In that case, they will blunder in making transaction entries in the books of accounts.
It is very pertinent that even back-office staff are trained to know and understand the government’s relevant updates, the latest market developments, technologies, etc.
This article talks about the advantages and ways you can contribute to the development of your employees, which ultimately would help your business grow as seamlessly as possible.
Professional development options for accountants and bookkeepers
Employee development costs should never be seen as a cost-cutting avenue. Rather, professional development opportunities should not be missed even in the tough times when a business is struggling for growth. In most cases, the cost of implementing an employee learning program is not very substantial. If you are looking for professional development ideas for your workforce in the back-office division, then you are at the right place. Here are a few professional development options for accountants and bookkeepers.
- 1. Job rotation of the employees
The most effective way to add value to an accountant, a bookkeeper, or any employee working in the financial development of your business is by rotating their job. It is the best way to enable the employees to learn new skills and increase their overall functionality and capabilities within the company. It also helps teach the problem-solving approach and out-of-the-box thinking from multiple perspectives.
Rotating the jobs of the accountants and bookkeepers will also save them from being bored with their monotonous roles and responsibilities, improving their job satisfaction and overall retention rates.
- 2. Prioritize Mentorship
One of the most prominent ideas to help the employees of your financial department is asking the senior and more experienced level candidates of the business to guide the junior colleagues to do better with their profile by having an optimistic approach and leading by example. More than professional skills, sometimes the interpersonal skills or learnings from the life experience of the supervisors help a lot.
Mentoring will polish the skill set and knowledge of the employees and help build and maintain the relations between the top-level and front-line employees of the company.
In addition, you can organize brainstorming events where employees from all levels of management come together and share their thoughts about the potential ways to grow the business. It helps get some brilliant ideas and gives the junior-level colleagues the moment of feeling valued and essential to the organization.
- 3. Cross-departmental functioning
For a particular project, a project task force should be developed that includes manpower resources from two or more departments of your company. This way, employees from different departments of your business will come together to understand the counter-departments’ functioning and learn about novel activities. Creating cross-departmental teams will help you build strong teams where employees bond quickly and effortlessly with other employees from different divisions.
- 4. Sessions by external experts as guest speakers
Inviting guest speakers is one of the oldest, classic, yet compelling ways to train and motivate your company’s employees. Guest speakers help you keep updated with the latest trends and technological advancements in your industry and ultimately improve the overall skillset and learnings about industry evolvements.
Such events also help businesses keep the interest of the employees intact and motivate them to go ahead without fearing anything. These sessions are helpful from a professional growth perspective and a personal development point of view. A belief is taught in the personnel that perseverance will help them achieve whatever they want holds all the gist.
- 5. Providing reskilling and upskilling opportunities
Reskilling and upskilling always help companies, as their employees now prepare for future professional challenges and leverage the power of their talents to contribute to the company’s profits and growth. Here are some ideas related to reskilling and upskilling that are both budget- and schedule-friendly.
- Virtual training is one of the most potent tactics as it gives freedom to the employees to watch and learn from the recorded videos at their convenience.
- Reskilling and upskilling can be done with the help of microlearning. The microlearning process can be delivered through podcasts, mobile applications, online videos, etc.
- P2P (Peer-to-peer) learning includes team projects and virtual workshops by employees of the same department or another department who have already learned the subject and share their experience and knowledge with the team.
All these things around training and development of the back-office staff are relevant when you have an in-office team of accountants and bookkeepers. If you have outsourced your accounting and bookkeeping requirements to third-party experts, you need to bother about any of these things.
Final words
To stay away from the hassles of accountants’ and bookkeepers’ learning and training responsibilities, it is a wise idea to outsource all your requirements to experts in the industry who have worked with different clients for a long and know every aspect of your sector to help you grow faster while you focus on your business operations. Yes, we at CFO UAE are there for your assistance.
