More companies are offering remote work as an option for accounting roles. It makes sense as a response to the accountant shortage, but accounting is a traditionally in-office role -- even post-lockdown. Is anyone offering this? What pros/cons have you seen so far?
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CFO8 months ago
We are allowing remote work when an employee has a child that is sick or is sick themselves. We do not have a formal policy regarding remote work. It is left to my discretion as CFO with oversight of accounting, finance, and IT employees. Several members of our IT staff work on-site 2 days a week and remote the other 3. However, we have not seen where that kind of schedule works for accountants. Hope this helps...SVP, Finance and Accounting in Real Estate8 months ago
My company offers hybrid schedules to our corporate team members with manager approval. Accounting is generally in the office 3 or more days a week after completion of a training period (the length is up to the supervisors' discretion). Accounting responsibilities lend themselves to remote work because it is fairly simple for a manager to monitor productivity based on observable outputs. Whether it's meeting deadlines throughout the month or AP processing an expected number of invoices, it's either done or not. I have found that if a person is not working at home when they are supposed to be they likely aren't being productive in the office either. Having a hybrid schedule forces managers to monitor productivity rather than time at a desk and this can flush out underperformers faster. In my opinion, the largest con for the worker is the lack of exposure to leaders and team members in other departments. The networking that happens in the office is very important to gaining institutional knowledge and business acumen, which are critical to advance one's career. You're far more likely to get the choice assignment if you're at your desk when a leader is looking for someone to help than if they have to remember you exist and then track you down at home. I believe, the biggest proponents of remote work are individual contributors who are self starters who don't need a lot of supervision to be productive, they don't need to be micromanaged and are happy in their current role (I would count myself in this group because when I worked remotely I was far more productive with my own "work" and worked longer hours) or they are people who want to fly under the radar and do the bare minimum. The former are the remote workers I want on my team, but the latter are the ones who will ruin it for everyone.
Global Director, Finance Operations8 months ago
I find there is a greater amount of collaboration and understanding when we work in the office. I find there is a lot of missed opportunity and silo approach when folks only work remotely. A hybrid model is an option to help meet folks in the middle.CFO in Travel and Hospitality7 months ago
With the advancement of technology and data and servers are cloud based, it is very easy to mange the accounting working remotely. This will gelp company save on office spaces and travel coss for employees. Employees can have their own freedom of managing the work-life balance.However, it would be difficult to manage or monitor the staff work and performance while working remotely.
The better option should be mix of both like 2 days in office , 3 days remotely etc to keep human interaction and remote working simultaneously.