Finance and accounting exodus may worsen soon

If you’ve been struggling to retain finance and accounting talent, sorry to say, we’ve got bad news for you: Things may be about to get worse.

Nearly a quarter of accounting and finance professionals plan to leave their employers within the next twelve months. That’s according to a recent survey of 1,200+ current and former accounting and finance professionals conducted by the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) and Robert Half.

Worryingly, 11% of those surveyed say they plan to leave the profession altogether within the next year. Though some of those are older employees anticipating retirement, 8% of the 18- to 38-year-olds surveyed said they want to get out of accounting and finance within a year.

That finding surprised Susie Duong, senior director of research and thought leadership at IMA and one of the authors of the study. “That’s a very striking number, an alarming number that we should consider,” she told CFO Brew.

The younger cohort also experienced the most turnover of any age group; 39% said they’d voluntarily left a job within the past two years.

Dissatisfaction with culture drives turnover: One perhaps encouraging finding was that, by and large, it’s not the work itself that’s driving finance and accounting staff away. Eighty-seven percent of all respondents said they were satisfied with the type of work they do.

Other factors are to blame. Particularly, staff leave because they’re unhappy with a workplace’s culture, the survey found. Forty-three percent of those planning to leave a job within the next year said they didn’t feel like they belonged at work, compared with only 10% of those who intended to stay. And 46% of those who aim to leave within the next year said they didn’t feel valued or supported at work, versus 12% of those who planned to stay.

Problems with management can also prompt employees to look for greener pastures. Half of survey respondents who planned to leave jobs in the next year said they were dissatisfied with their supervisors. Only 12% of those who intended to stay said the same.

Among young people, Duong noted, dissatisfaction with culture and career opportunities were two prominent reasons for leaving jobs. “And that’s something I think the leaders in our profession, CFOs and other accounting leaders should pay more attention to,” she said.

Compensation was another driver of turnover. Eighty percent of the employees who intended to stay said they were well-compensated, and 83% said they had good benefits. IMA’s report didn’t specify the percentage of those planning to leave who were happy with their compensation and benefits, but “the percentage is much lower,” Duong said, based on the survey findings.

She noted, though, that “compensation itself is not going to solve all the problems,” and that leaders can’t overlook other factors “if they want to fully address this issue.”

IMA’s report outlined strategies CFOs and other leaders can use to tackle the retention problem. It’s a useful starting point, Duong said, and can serve as “a foundation for CFOs and for accounting and finance leaders to initiate discussion either internally with their team or externally.”