Accountants in business are adaptable, love and loathe IT, and feelunder threat from the reputation of other qualifications. These are someof the findings that Andrew Sawers examines in the results of BCAB'slatest survey.
A dozen years ago, an article in The Times forecast that, by the year 1994, technology would develop to the stage where a company financial manager would be able to work a 30-hour week – 40% at home.
Which only goes to prove that the future isn’t what it used to be. Technology has changed and the way accountants in business do their job has changed too, but not in the way that might have been expected back in 1984.
It hasn’t been easy. A new survey by the English ICA’s Board of Chartered Accountants in Business (BCAB), Changing Work Patterns, reveals that, of the 1,200 accountants who responded to the questionnaire, more than a third – 36% – had been made redundant at some point in the last ten years. Just over a quarter say they are working longer hours, or having to take work home as a result of management delayering, while almost 40% say that there is more work and more pressure.
But as BCAB chairman Richard Close says in the report’s foreword: ‘Chartereds in business are experiencing changing work patterns, but are not daunted by them.’
Their ability to bounce back appears to be phenomenal. For example, almost two-fifths of those who have been made redundant in the last decade moved straight into a new job. Only a small fraction were out of work for more than six months.
Those pressures aren’t over. Redundancy, early retirement, ageism and even ‘sideways moves’ within their current company are still things that accountants worry about. Just over a tenth said that they have had to put their job on the line over an ethical issue.
The survey covered accountants at all levels in business – CEOs, directors, financial controllers, managers – but the trend across the board is clear: chartereds in business are doing less accountancy-type work. Half of the respondents are also involved in general management within or outside the finance department, while 29% do legal work and about a quarter are involved in personnel or office management.
They see opportunities to expand their skills, interpret rather than produce figures, and get involved in general and senior management or strategic planning. But to do this, accountants know that they have to improve their business acumen and commercial awareness, their interpersonal and communication skills, their ability to manage people and their ability to think strategically.
These four ‘soft’ skills were most in demand, and were mentioned as being important now and for the future by more than two-thirds of the respondents.
Information technology ranked fifth. Taxation, legal knowledge, treasury and regulatory matters ranked lower down. Oddly, perhaps, given single markets and globalisation of business, international accounting standards and languages were regarded as the least important skills.
While a quarter of business accountants have found themselves becoming more specialised in the last five years, a third have become less specialised.
Over the next five years, those who want to become even less specialised outnumber those seeking a narrower focus by two-to-one.
Broadly, it is only the younger accountants, those under the age of 36, who want to become more expert in their field over the next few years.
But even that might well be a function of a longer-term game plan to build up a portfolio of specialist skills. Hence, it may be that the ultimate goal of younger accountants is to build a cv with enough range and depth to take them anywhere.
Predictably, IT features prominently in the survey. A third of the accountants who responded are also involved in managing information technology – but they have a ‘love it or loathe it’ attitude. IT was the second most frequently cited future threat to accountants in business. IT was also the third most frequently cited opportunity. Two-thirds of accountants said that information technology was an important professional skill, and it was by far the most important ‘personal development’ skill.
But while business accountants might be thought of as being at the cutting edge of electronic data interchange, relational database management and the like, one-third of the 1,200 accountants who responded to the survey said that it was important for them to increase their knowledge of word processing.
The ‘trickle up’ theory of IT education works slowly, it would appear.
Spreadsheeting skills topped the IT wish list, reflecting, perhaps, a desire to get more involved in ‘what if’ forecasting and analysis.
More telling was the range of views expressed about how IT has affected accountants so far. There was broad agreement that IT has enabled accountants to do a better job. But at the same time, there was almost as strong an agreement that IT has resulted in more information being produced, but not actually used.
Many accountants are getting much of the non-accountancy training that they think they need, and generally speaking their employers are paying for it. More than a third have been on company-funded interpersonal communication skills training, for example, while more than half have been on business management training. Short courses are by far the preferred route.
Most worryingly for the institute, the biggest threat that chartered accountants in business see ahead of them is the growing reputation of other qualifications. CIMAs and MBAs are thought to be encroaching on territory that used to be the exclusive preserve of the chartereds because they can make ‘relevant contributions to management’ more quickly. The perceived value of commercial experience alone is also appreciating, relative to that of the chartered qualification. Insufficiently broad-based training and the chartereds’ strong audit background are, they feel, devaluing their relative status.
But ethical issues were also raised. While 59% felt that ethical standards within the profession are high, 12% said that they could be higher. Incidentally, the top-ranked reason why the respondents chose a career in accountancy in the first place was the professional status it conferred.
But the second most common reason for becoming accountants was that it was seen as a good route to senior management. The opportunity, the challenge, and the whole of the Changing Work Patterns survey are neatly encapsulated in the words of one respondent: ‘We see holders of accountancy positions as members of management and they must have, or quickly acquire, the wide range of skills necessary to justify this recognition.’
The questionnaire was sent to 5,000 English ICA members who work in industry and commerce; 1,194 responded, a response rate of 24%.
Changing Work Patterns was commissioned by the English ICA’s Board of Chartered Accountants in Business, and was researched and written by The Industrial Society. It is available from Gina Brown at the English ICA on 0171-920 8465; free to institute members; non-members u60.
