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No, accounting does not get the resources that other departments get. We are hiring people right and left, yet not hiring more in my department, and my staff is spread very thin. Thanks for the insight.
Ok, it probably has nothing to do with your age. It has to do with their lack of respec5 for fiscal reality.
Do you have an established budget, budget amendment process, transparent budget? P&Ls, cash flow analysis, balance sheets? Do you have any influence on any of that?
I produce the financials. The company has never had a budget. My boss doesn't seem to understand the details behind the financials, he just looks at the bottom line. We do business in over 15 states. It seems as though not much thought is put into how much things costs, just the sales aspect. We are profitable, but a lot of money is spent foolishly without regard to the long term impact.
That is the crux of your problem. They place no value on your role, and until they do, you will be viewed as having no value in your leadership meetings.
Do you have a board of directors? Do you report directly to the CEO?
You need to have somebody value the finance role. I would start by educating them on the value of your team. Increasing profitability by reducing shrink, write offs, etc. increasing margin. That type of thing. Tell them you will need appraise staffing. Emphasize the need for a budget to help with this. Describe how fupiscal responsibility will make them even more profitable.
If nobody is interested in listening to you because they truly don’t care, it won’t improve. You need to get them interested in financial matters, suck it up until retirement, ir move on.
I produce the financials. The company has never had a budget. My boss doesn't seem to understand the details behind the financials, he just looks at the bottom line. We do business in over 15 states. It seems as though not much thought is put into how much things costs, just the sales aspect. We are profitable, but a lot of money is spent foolishly without regard to the long term impact.
They don't care about the finances because it all 'just works out.' Which it will, until it won't. You are in a miserable position because if you try to make people care about running a tight ship they will want you gone as a blocker on getting more resources for their goals and team, and if you don't do anything you will be blamed and gone when things don't just 'work out' anymore because you're the finance person.
Given your age if the company is likely to keep coasting you might want to keep your head down and let it keep coasting. If that's not you (and given your response it's probably not; wouldn't be me either), you should probably look for other work.
In terms of micro advice, I'd recommend creating a budget, creating metrics around stuff like who isn't paying the bills, profit margin by account etc. If no one looks at them no one looks at them, but maybe the CEO will take a read after seeing them the third time (small words and numbers, big graphics, pretty, that's the format you want) and if things start going upside down at least some people will start reading and actioning the reports rather than pointing the finger at you. The catch is you need to do this with the resources you have (talk to some of the younger accountants - just like the young executives aren't listening to your wisdom maybe one of your younger team members could automate half their job if given more freedom on tools and reallocate that time to building and running KPI reports for you or automating your drudge work so you can build a budget).
edit: also, stop leaving the meeting once your part is over! If you don't take any interest in other people's concerns how can you expect them to trust you to weigh them against the financial concerns that you have!
Last edited by ALackOfCreativity; 02-11-2018 at 09:50 PM..
I don't have too much helpful advice, but I can very much relate to your situation. I too was the oldest person on my so-called "team" and had a great deal of experience on most of the objectives planned out. I was ignored or told "no" every time I would have an idea or a suggestion. I was new and the oldest female and stuck dealing with very young and very snooty female coworkers. I wasn't pushy or unwilling to listen to new ideas, I was only trying to help and share my knowledge so we could do our jobs well. Eventually I just gave up and didn't even bother trying to provide input during planning meetings.
They were all very close in age and went out of their way to ignore me and would plan without me, even though we were supposed to collaborate. It has been a miserable and lonely five months and I have been trying to find another job so I could quit.
Unfortunately, I was told that I am being fired because I'm not a "good fit" and my performance is poor. I am now losing my health insurance and income. I don't know what I am going to do because I am at an age where most places don't want to even consider hiring me. I have to go to work for the next month and deal with another young mean girl who is taking my job. It went from a miserable situation to one that is beyond cruel and very humiliating.
My advice is to do your job as best as you can, but make it known to the powers that be that you are a team player and wiling to go above and beyond..I know it sucks but at least you have a light at the end of the tunnel. Most young workers don't believe older workers have any valuable knowledge or have anything worth listening to. We are automatically labeled as stubborn, set in our ways, adverse to change and they wish we would just go away. I remember when I was starting out in the corporate world, I listened to everyone and sought advice from older and more experienced people - now it is just the opposite and getting worse. I was much happier when I worked with other older workers. Hang in there, at least you have a job.
They've been raised by Disney movies that show how dumb, out-of-touch, resistant to change and afraid every adult or parent is.
Only the young, smart, quick ones are heroes in the end.
So they've learned all older people are stupid and should be ignored. Every time.
I'm the new controller for a mid size company. I'm one of five employee's who are on the leadership team. I'm the oldest member of the group by almost twenty years. Here are their ages:27,35,35 and my boss who is 40. I've been with the company for 8 months, and my position is new. I have years of experience in various industries. I have over 15 years of management experience, so I would like to think I know what I'm doing.
It seems that whenever I make a suggestion during semi weekly leadership meetings, I am quickly shot down. Several of my co-workers have very little experience in their field (HR) who is so far up the boss's butt, I don't know how she can breathe. I have never been a kiss ass, and don't plan on starting now.
I can see bad decisions being made all the time, yet I'm never consulted. One would think they would want to take advantage of my 25 plus years of experience. I get along well with my staff and and have a good relationship with my boss.
Unfortunately for me, their bad decisions make my job harder. IE not having new customers complete credit applications then being surprised when they don't pay. I'm doing collections and it's very difficult as I know if these customers would have completed a credit app, they would have been turned down. They actually are afraid of hurting customers feelings by asking for basic information before taking a job.
It's very obvious to me that I'm not one of them. While they are nice for the most part, this is very annoying to me. Also, one of my staff is clearly after my job, and management loves her because she works a ton of hours and is salaried. She's very sneaky and has made me look bad on a few occasions. This woman is very close to one of the other leadership members, and it seems clear to me this manager would like to see this woman in my job as well.
I'm hoping to retire in 3-4 years, but I don't know is I can hang on that long. I have a huge workload as our company is growing like crazy.
Luckily for me, my boss just started doing my part of the leadership meetings at the beginning, so I don't have to waste four hours a week on things that have nothing to with my department. After we talk about accounting, I get to leave the meeting.
I had major surgery in Nov., and I was not happy with how I was treated during my recovery. While I could have been off work for 10 weeks, I came back after 2. My STD was denied so I needed to work.
The politics in the office are really getting to me. I just want to do my job, and not work 60 hours a week. I've never worked so hard in my life, and frankly I'm just tired of working my butt off while incompetent co-workers are doing nothing.
I've been passively looking for another job, but the prospect of starting over isn't appealing either.
Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.
Forget about their ages and don’t think just because your older than them you know more, their co-workers and it’s not their interests for you to succeed, the fact your older maybe makes them work as a team against you.
My advice would be to feign friendliness with them to get them to soften up, get as much out them of as possible, glean their knowledge , but don’t give them any information, use the fact your older to play dumb with them. Use email to your advantage.
Most of all get close to your boss as possible, don’t get too caught up in coworkers opinions of you, talk to your boss in private about ideas and suggestions, ask them how these could presented to the team. Network and get on with as many managers as possible.
I know this sounds this a little cynical, but it’s sort of mindset you need to deal with younger coworkers.
They don't care about the finances because it all 'just works out.' Which it will, until it won't. You are in a miserable position because if you try to make people care about running a tight ship they will want you gone as a blocker on getting more resources for their goals and team, and if you don't do anything you will be blamed and gone when things don't just 'work out' anymore because you're the finance person.
Given your age if the company is likely to keep coasting you might want to keep your head down and let it keep coasting. If that's not you (and given your response it's probably not; wouldn't be me either), you should probably look for other work.
In terms of micro advice, I'd recommend creating a budget, creating metrics around stuff like who isn't paying the bills, profit margin by account etc. If no one looks at them no one looks at them, but maybe the CEO will take a read after seeing them the third time (small words and numbers, big graphics, pretty, that's the format you want) and if things start going upside down at least some people will start reading and actioning the reports rather than pointing the finger at you. The catch is you need to do this with the resources you have (talk to some of the younger accountants - just like the young executives aren't listening to your wisdom maybe one of your younger team members could automate half their job if given more freedom on tools and reallocate that time to building and running KPI reports for you or automating your drudge work so you can build a budget).
edit: also, stop leaving the meeting once your part is over! If you don't take any interest in other people's concerns how can you expect them to trust you to weigh them against the financial concerns that you have!
All good advice, complementary to my earlier post. I completely neglected to address your meeting behavior, for which I apologize, but LacofCreativity was more comprehensive than I was and makes a superb point.
If you aren’t part of the process, the process won’t take your conce4ns into account.
dye you hair grey, but be thankful you are the youngest, you are allowed more mistakes
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