We sometimes think of workplace culture as something that unfolds organically, but that’s only partly true. Leaders’ actions can steer culture in positive or negative ways, as Chris Dyer, keynote speaker at the 2024 AICPA & CIMA CFO Conference, demonstrated. Drawing on his experience as a consultant and CEO, Dyer addressed practical ways leaders can tweak their culture.

Share goals and data to stave off conflict and generate ideas. Have team members share their goals for the year with one another, Dyer recommended, but take it a step further by sharing goals across teams as well. That can prevent conflicts, he said, such as inadvertently giving the sales team a target to meet that would make it hard for the customer service team to hit their metrics.

At one of Dyer’s companies, all employees got to read a summary of the P&L statement each month, plus the details that were specific to their team or department. (Non-financial staff got training on how to interpret financial statements.) This act of transparency paid off with innovation.

“What was so exciting was that [staff] would come back to us with so many ideas” on how to save money or areas that could be consolidated, Dyer said. “None of that ever happened before” because he and a handful of senior leaders were the only ones who had the P&L data. “And then I’m complaining that no one has any good ideas, but they don’t know what I know,” he observed.

For more on improving workplace culture, click here.—CV

Ready to take your SaaS finance strat to the next level (of course, you are) at absolutely no cost to you? (That’s quite the bonus.)

Just register for Sage’s free virtual event The Modern Saas Finance Forum to hear from big-name speakers, such as Jeff Epstein of Bessemer Venture Partners and Ben Murray of The SaaS CFO. This full-day summit includes:

• engaging keynote presentations by renowned experts in SaaS finance
• interactive panel discussions covering critical topics and emerging trends
• access to valuable resources and tools to optimize your SaaS finance strategies

Need specific guidance for certain teams? This summit has three different tracks to choose from: CFO, Controller, and RevOps.

It’s all going down on June 5. Learn how to build the processes and teams you need to scale your biz and win your market.

We hate to be the bearers of bad economic news, but, well…we’re gonna be the bearers of bad economic news.

The much-watched University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment dropped sharply this month, falling 12.7% to 67.4 from last month’s score of 77.2. It’s the lowest the metric has been in the past six months. The results were consistent across a broad range of “age, income, and education groups,” Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu wrote.

Consumers of all political stripes saw the economy as worsening. Sentiment declined by around 10 points this month for Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike.

“While consumers had been reserving judgment for the past few months, they now perceive negative developments on a number of dimensions,” Hsu wrote. Those dimensions included their expectations for the economy and their personal finances, which plunged 12.5% this month, and their expectations for inflation in the year ahead, which rose slightly, from 3.2% to 3.5%.

“The magnitude of the slump in confidence is pretty big and it isn’t satisfactorily explained” by factors like geopolitical tensions or stock market changes, according to Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics, CNBC reported. “That leaves us wondering if we’re missing something more worrying going on with the consumer.”

Click here for more on fading consumer sentiment.—CV

Even though every kid and tween in your life is begging for Robux, Roblox’s digital currency, the numbers aren’t quite adding up for the game maker right now.

In its Q1 earnings report last week, Roblox trimmed its annual bookings forecast, suggesting a pullback on in-game spending.

Roblox anticipates full-year bookings to come in between $4 billion and $4.1 billion, a dip from its previous estimate of $4.1 to $4.3 billion. For Q2, the company forecast bookings between $870 million and $900 million. Analysts expected $929 million in bookings for the quarter, per FactSet.

On a call with analysts, Roblox execs said they saw less growth than expected in Q1. “That is why we made the very difficult internal decision to adjust our bookings guidance,” CEO Dave Baszucki said.

Roblox, which went public in 2021, only recently started providing guidance, doing so for the first time earlier this year.

Roblox shares went tumbling after it reported, but some analysts, like Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, told the Wall Street Journal the reaction seemed “a bit severe,” though “the implication is that they are struggling.”

For more on Roblox’s earnings, click here.—NP

See a CFO’s to-do list. A CFO’s day is anything but typical, but the most efficient ones do rely on routines. Oracle NetSuite is pulling back the curtain on what finance execs oversee, accomplish, and experience in their free business guide: The CFO’s Daily Checklist. Peep the 10 main to-dos here.

The CFO Leadership Conference returns June 4–6 in Boston's Seaport. Learn from a panel of incredible guest speakers from Zoetis, Toast, IBM, Bain & Company, and more! Experience three action-packed days of in-person collaboration with 300+ senior finance leaders and get inspiration from world-class experts. Save $100 with code Brew24.

Register here!