Recognising the Signs that Your Best Accountant is About to Quit and How to Manage Them

As a senior Finance leader, experience will have led you to a place where you can sense that something is in the air or that something seems ‘off’ with one of your finance team members.

Warning Signs

There will always be some signs that are clear that something is not sitting well with a member of your team. If they are left unaddressed you will likely receive an unwanted and unexpected resignation letter but there are ways to ensure you get ahead of an issue that could be swiftly rectified with a conversation.

• Absences from work at peculiar times for dentist/doctor appointments, food poisoning, and alarm clocks failing to go off.
• Shift in attitude – disengagement is a key sign and there could be several reasons for it. You may be aware it is happening, but you might not. John Marx, Director of Halliday Marx, says “Often people are happy to work hard for a good Manager but if things begin to steer off course and the team member is noticeably putting in less effort, then there is a good chance that they are moving closer to the exit door.”
• Quality of work declines – Your once reliable, ‘never miss a deadline’ team member begins to produce work that is lacking accuracy or has significant errors that requires more oversight. This is often a strong indicator that they have ‘checked out’ and their focus is elsewhere.
• Accountant dominoes – Often if one respected team member leaves, others can question their own futures and take it as their sign that they should leave too. It’s vital to understand the reasons the team member has left, address any issues if necessary that may impact other team member’s job satisfaction, and communicate to the finance team what is being done to move forward positively. I.e. turn the worry into excitement.
• The cold shoulder – We all have ‘off-days’ but if your once personable and energetic team member has stopped engaging as normal with their team or peers, something is likely up.
• Conversations are cut short. Not easy to spot, but if you head to the water cooler and people change the subject they were chatting about or if the team are going out for a few more coffees than usual, this could also be an indicator that there is an underlying problem.

If these signs resonate with you, think about what the reasons could be as to why there might have been a shift in behaviour and a visible change in the general happiness at work. 

Why Could They Want to Leave?

“There are several reasons why an employee might want to leave,” says Andy Halliday, Director of Halliday Marx, “those reasons are not always work-related. However, after working with finance leaders and job seekers every day, there are common themes such as being overlooked for a promotion or a change in management that are often the reason behind why your team members could be looking for a new job”.

There are numerous other reasons why your team could be looking for a new role, including;

• Being overlooked for a role within the general finance team that they would have liked to have been considered for, that is now being recruited for externally
• Lack of a clear roadmap for career progression – where is their finance career heading? Is anyone discussing this?
• An unsatisfactory salary review
• Lack of recognition for effort by way of thanks (public and private). A ‘thank you’ and ‘well done’ goes a long way
• Lower-than-expected bonus
• They see the leadership as being weak or having ‘backed-down’ in dealing with troublesome or underperforming team members.
• Poor communication from leadership about personnel changes, acquisitions, internal projects, mergers, etc. This is more common if the change impacts the employee directly such as the company moving locations. Rumours start and grow because of a lack of or poor communication and someone has filled the gap in, often wrongly.

What to do When Your Team Members are Acting Differently?

When you notice someone is acting differently your first instinct might be to leave them to sort it out for themselves. While it might work in some instances, do you really want to take the risk that they leave? If they are a critical team member then it becomes even more important how you handle the situation.

Often the best way to build trust and break down the barriers is to foster a culture of open communication. Ensure your finance team can chat openly with you so that they can ask questions in the knowledge that they won’t be negatively impacted by doing so. You might also want to address the elephant in the room by approaching them to let them know you sense something is up and discussing any problems they may have.

Understand and document your finance team member’s career goals if you believe this is an issue. Help set out a roadmap for the next 12 months so that they know their aspirations are being taken seriously. Have regular catch-ups to review these and then reset the goals once they are achieved

At Halliday Marx, we know that as a manager, not only are you responsible for the workload of the team and the expectations from the executive team, but you also need to be a mind-reader and a detective. By keeping the above warning signs in mind when you are seeing some unusual behaviour in your team, you will hopefully be able to stop the resignation of your best team members before it’s too late. 

If you would like any more advice on this topic, please contact us on 020 7096 8200 or email us at [email protected]

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