In the financial services industry, you may work alone, either in your own business or for an organization. If you are a team of one, you often shoulder greater responsibility which can leave you feeling overloaded and unsupported. It would help if you had a plan to prevent you from becoming overworked, isolated and unhappy.
Some strategies that you can implement to stay motivated and productive when working alone are:
Be Organised
Keep up with your schedule, workflows and deadlines, and prioritise them accordingly. You alone are accountable for completing your work on time.
- Organise your time. Make a to-do list with the day's priorities at the top. This will help you to plan your day. You will be able to identify which tasks need to be done first and which can be left later in the day. You'll also be able to plan your most challenging work to the times of day when you're at your best.
- Organise your workspace. If the state of your workspace is affecting your productivity, then you need to make some changes. Declutter and organise your desk so you can implement a good workflow.
- Organise your technology. We have already touched on the importance of automating processes. Scheduling programs like Monday.com and Wrike can be used to alert you to upcoming key dates and work priorities. Other time-saving features that can help you stay organised include using your inbox to label and file emails, colour-code your online calendar and setting yourself electronic reminders.
Engage with others
Research shows that interpersonal relationships are crucial in maintaining a happy working environment. Stay connected with colleagues by planning meetings, staying in touch virtually, and attending networking and industry-related events. For example, ICB's Network Meetings which bookkeepers run for bookkeepers. This will enable you to connect with like-minded people and stay motivated.
Get help
No matter how good you are at your job, you can't be good at everything. Furthermore, as a team of one, you are unlikely to have much time available to master new skills, and when you're ill or suffer a setback, the needs of the business continue regardless. Plan for business growth and bring new staff into the business to help you with your workload. You can also use your networking skills to build up a bank of contacts who can provide you with professional support.
Embrace professional development opportunities
Working alone can reduce your ability to develop yourself professionally. Try to take ownership of your learning and development needs. Start by carrying out a Personal SWOT Analysis to help pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses. You could also try keeping a journal to review your learning and training needs. Once you've done this, find time to develop and implement your development plan.
As well as being able to work autonomously, bookkeepers and BAS agents need to demonstrate they can work in a team. When clients engage a bookkeeper or BAS agent, they become an integral part of the client's team, working with management to achieve a common goal. Ultimately, goals should be integrated through all stakeholders to ensure management, employees and external stakeholders are working towards and supporting the mission and overall direction of the organisation.
Teamwork can loosely be defined as working together to achieve a common goal. It is a core skill that anyone working in the financial services industry needs to develop. Teamwork skills are the qualities and abilities that allow you to work well with others during conversations, work tasks, meetings or other collaborations. Teamwork skills depend on your ability to communicate well, listen actively, and be responsible and honest.
Examples of teamwork skills
To achieve team goals and objectives, you will need to plan effectively, prioritise tasks to be completed, work independently and with others and manage your time effectively. Having the skills required to do the job is no longer enough. In the rapidly changing work environment, you will need to continually upgrade and develop your skills and adapt to changes in technology and organisational structures.
Communicating work Priorities
Effective communication is critical to the successful execution of team goals and objectives. A business strategy describes the choices the business makes to achieve its objective and goals. For the strategy to be effectively implemented, clarity about the vision, mission, and objectives, to your team is essential.
To effectively communicate priorities from a work plan with team members, you can follow these steps:
- Prepare the work plan: Create a detailed work plan that outlines tasks, deadlines, and priorities. Ensure that it is clear and well-organised so that team members can easily understand their roles and responsibilities.
- Schedule a team meeting: Arrange a meeting with your team to discuss the work plan and priorities. This can be done in person, via video conference, or through a team collaboration platform. Make sure to provide sufficient notice and share the work plan ahead of time so that team members can review it in advance.
- Present the work plan: Begin the meeting by presenting the work plan to the team. Walk through the key objectives, timelines, and deliverables. Emphasise the importance of each task and its alignment with overall project goals. Use visual aids, such as slides or charts, to enhance understanding.
- Encourage questions and clarifications: Allow team members to ask questions or seek clarifications about the work plan. This helps ensure that everyone is on the same page and understands their roles. Address any concerns or ambiguities promptly, promoting a clear and shared understanding.
- Discuss priorities: Clearly communicate the priorities within the work plan. Explain which tasks are most critical and time-sensitive. Help team members understand the reasoning behind these priorities and how they contribute to the overall project objectives. Encourage open discussion to foster alignment and gather input from team members.
- Break down tasks: Break down the larger tasks into smaller, manageable subtasks. Assign these subtasks to team members based on their expertise, skills, and availability. Clearly communicate the dependencies and sequence of tasks to help team members understand the workflow.
- Set expectations: Establish clear expectations regarding deadlines, quality standards, and communication protocols. Ensure that team members understand what is expected of them in terms of deliverables, timelines, and collaboration with others.
- Provide support and resources: Make sure team members have the necessary resources, tools, and support to complete their tasks effectively. Address any resource gaps or constraints proactively to prevent delays or misunderstandings.
- Follow up and reinforce: Regularly follow up with team members to monitor progress, address any challenges, and provide guidance if needed. Reinforce the priorities by discussing them during team meetings and ensuring that the work plan remains visible and accessible to all.
- Foster open communication: Encourage open communication within the team. Create a supportive environment where team members feel comfortable discussing their progress, challenges, and ideas. This allows for effective collaboration and adjustment of priorities if required.
Effective communication is a continuous process. Stay accessible to your team members, encourage feedback, and be open to revisiting priorities as the project evolves.
Time, Resources and Priority Management
An essential element of planning your work effectively is learning how to manage your time.
You can analyse the effectiveness of your planning and task management by:
- keeping a detailed record of all the activities that you complete during a day when you are very busy working
- recording the time spent on each task to reflect on whether you:
- used your time well
- had appropriate resources
- ways you could have worked more effectively
Organising Your WorkSpace
Organising your workspace will reduce clutter, allow you to access information and equipment you need quickly and easily, and make it easier for you to process information and complete tasks.
Activity - Organisational skills
Use the Organisational Skills Activity Template to list five tasks you need to accomplish this week, either for work, study or family. Then sort them in order of priority. Identify the information and resources required to complete the tasks, and the deadline.
Giving feedback is a team leader's responsibility. Whether positive or negative, team members need constructive and timely feedback to change behaviour, learn, improve, and succeed.
Different types of employee feedback
Formal feedback - feedback given in a formal review setting
Informal feedback – feedback given in the moment
Constructive feedback – feedback that helps team members achieve a positive outcome. i.e
"Peter, thank you for letting me know you are running behind schedule on lodging this month's IAS. Since this is the third time you have missed your deadline, let us discuss some time management strategies to ensure it does not happen again."
Giving Feedback Effectively
You should follow some guidelines when providing feedback to your staff or team.
Try to Make It a Positive Experience
Before giving feedback, remind yourself why you are doing it. Feedback is meant to improve the situation or the person's performance. You won't accomplish that by being harsh, critical or offensive.
You'll likely get much more from people when your approach is positive and focused on improvement. That's not to say feedback always has to be good, but it should be fair and balanced.
Be Timely
The closer to the event you address the issue, the better. Feedback isn't about surprising someone, so the sooner you do it, the more the person will be expecting it.
Think of it this way: it's much easier to provide feedback about a single, one-hour job that hasn't been done correctly than it is about a whole year of failed, one-hour jobs.
Tip
However, there is an exception if the situation involved is highly emotional. If this is the case, wait until everyone has calmed down before you engage in feedback. You can't risk letting yourself get worked up of you may say something that you will regret later.
Make It Regular
Feedback is a process that requires constant attention. When something needs to be said, say it. People then know where they stand all the time, and there will be few surprises. Also, problems don't get out of hand. It's not a once-a-year or a once-every-three-month event. Though this may be the timing of formal feedback, informal, simple feedback should be given much more often than this – perhaps every week or even every day, depending on the situation. With frequent, informal feedback like this, nothing said during formal feedback sessions should be unexpected, surprising or difficult.
Prepare Your Comments
You don't want to read a script, but you need to be clear about what you are going to say. This will help you to stay on track and stick to the issues.
Be Specific
Tell the person exactly what he needs to improve. This ensures that you stick to facts, and there is less room for ambiguity.
What does that mean if you tell someone that she acted unprofessionally? Was she too loud, too friendly, too casual, too flippant or too poorly dressed? Remember to stick to what you know first-hand: you'll quickly find yourself on shaky ground if you start giving feedback based on other people's views.
Tip
Try not to exaggerate to make a point. Avoid words like "never", "all", and "always" because the person will likely get defensive. Always discuss the direct impact of the behavior and don;t get personal or seek to blame.
Criticize in Private
While public recognition is appreciated, public scrutiny is not.
Establish a safe place to talk where you won't be interrupted or overheard.
Use "I" Statements
Give feedback from your perspective. This way, you avoid labelling the person.
Say, "I was angry and hurt when you criticized my report in front of my boss" rather than "You were insensitive yesterday."
Limit Your Focus
A feedback session should discuss no more than two issues. Any more than that, you risk the person feeling attacked and demoralised. It would help if you also stuck to behaviours they can change or influence.
Talk About Positives Too
A good rule is to start with something positive. This helps put the person at ease. It will also allow her to "see" what success looks like and what steps she needs to take next time to get it right.
Try to end on a high note, too. Otherwise, she may be left feeling discouraged and worthless.
Tip
Many people tend to overdo this and end up sandwiching the constructive feedback between too many positives. Then the takeaway message becomes, "Gee, I'm doing really well," instead of "I'm good at communicatine with customers, but I need to bring my interpersonal skills with my co-workers up to that same level.
Provide Specific Suggestions
Make sure you both know what needs to be done to improve the situation. The main message should be that you care and want to help the person grow and develop. Set goals and make plans to monitor and evaluate his progress. Use the SMART acronym and define specific steps and milestones or the GROW model to motivate him to deliver the change you want.
G.R.O.W. coaching model
Goal
Reality
Obstacles/Opinions
Way forward
Tip
- You may not agree on everything, so it is a good idea to ask the person to give her perspective. Use phrases like, "What is your reaction to this?" or "Is this a fair representation of what happened?"
- Listen actively to what she has to say and try to get her to offer some suggestions for improvement. This way she has an opportunity to own the solution and will be more likely to follow through with it, To avoi from words like "good", "bad", "must" and "need to" etc.
Follow Up
The whole purpose of feedback is to improve performance. You need to measure whether or not that is happening and then make adjustments. Be sure to document your conversations and discuss what is working and what needs to be modified.
Tip
It's also important that you actively seek feedback from your boss, colleagues, and customers.
Recognise the team
Managers and leaders are used to finding ways to reward and recognise individual employees. They think about employee engagement and how to improve worker productivity. It is easy to find articles with a lot of ideas on how you can recognise individual accomplishments. But what about moving beyond individual performance appraisals and finding ways to reward a highly productive team? Or motivate a struggling one?
First, everyone must agree that teamwork is necessary to get the desired results or reach a shared vision. Without that agreement, some people may act in self-interest rather than for the team's benefit. Each team member needs to know that their performance in the team has consequences.
Team recognition matters to both the team and its members. It makes the work and the team's results visible in the organisation. It makes others excited to work with that team or welcome new members. It also makes it more likely that current members will be sought after by other teams.
A team leader's skills, knowledge and ability to communicate effectively with the team members are paramount when assisting a team in identifying and resolving problems. The ability of a team leaders to solve problems and to develop problem solving skills in team members is also important.
To assist a team identify and resolve workplace problems:
- Define the problem
- Identify the type of problem
- Identify constraining issues
- Develop alternative solutions
- Evaluative the alternative solutions
- Decide on a solution and implement it
- Monitor and evaluate the action
Successful leadership of work teams requires team leaders to continually review the environment the team is working in to ensure all members have opportunity to participate in the team. In working to achieve participation team leaders will draw on their communication, organisation and planning skills to develop a team with members who are willing to contribute to decision making and to take responsibility for their actions.
Case Study – Identify and resolve workplace conflict
Sam and Peta are both bookkeepers and BAS agents working for XYZ Accounting, a small business. They often collaborate closely on certain clients' accounts but also have separate tasks that are interconnected with other clients. However, there is a recurring issue with Sam being consistently late in following up on missing transactions from clients. This delay, in turn, causes Peta to frequently miss BAS deadlines, leading to frustration and resentment from Sam. What Peta is unaware of is that Sam is regularly assigned extra work by their supervisor, causing her to fall behind on other tasks.
Write down how you would resolve this workplace conflict effectively.
Resolving the workplace conflict between Sam and Peta effectively requires a combination of leadership and communication skills.
Ways to address the conflict could include:
- Foster open communication by encouraging both Sam and Peta to express their concerns and frustrations openly in a safe and respectful environment. Create a space where they can share their perspectives without fear of judgment or reprisal.
- As a leader, practice active listening by giving your full attention to each employee when they express their concerns. Listen attentively to understand their perspectives, feelings, and underlying issues contributing to the conflict.
- Show empathy towards both Sam and Peta, acknowledging their frustrations and challenges. Understand that both employees have valid concerns and emotions that need to be addressed.
- Bring Sam and Peta together for a constructive conversation. Set ground rules for the discussion, such as respectful communication, no interruptions, and a focus on finding solutions. Guide the conversation to ensure everyone has an opportunity to speak and be heard.
- Explore the underlying factors contributing to the conflict. Identify issues such as Sam's delayed follow-up, Peta missing deadlines, and Sam's additional workload. Uncover any systemic or organisational issues that may be impacting their performance.
- Encourage both employees to collaborate on finding solutions. Brainstorm strategies to improve communication, time management, and task prioritization. Encourage them to take ownership of their responsibilities and find ways to support each other.
- Clearly define expectations for timely follow-up, task completion, and meeting deadlines. Ensure that both Sam and Peta understand their roles, responsibilities, and the impact their actions have on each other and the overall team.
- Provide the necessary support and resources to help Sam and Peta fulfill their responsibilities effectively. This may involve workload adjustments, additional training, or process improvements to streamline their tasks.
- Schedule regular check-ins with Sam and Peta to monitor progress, offer feedback, and address any emerging issues. Provide constructive feedback to help them improve their performance and resolve any lingering conflicts.
If the conflict persists or cannot be resolved through internal efforts, consider involving a neutral third party to mediate the situation. They can provide additional support and guidance to find a resolution.
With new technology and automation, the bookkeeping role is changing. Bookkeepers are becoming more like business advisors and virtual CFOs, rather than data processors. Bookkeepers can no longer continue to do what they have always done and expect the same results. Unless bookkeepers embrace the change, they will get left behind. The bookkeeping industry is not dying, it’s simply evolving, and bookkeepers need to evolve with it.
Ways you can adapt to changes
With the accelerating pace of technological change, many bookkeepers rush to keep up with new software, programs and technical processes implemented in the workplace. By its very nature, technology evolves quickly, racing to address the new situations and problems created by implementing previous technologies so that even young bookkeepers who enter the workplace with advanced technological skills can soon fall behind the technological curve.
Anticipating Change
- Read a publication dealing with technology in accounting and bookkeeping. From printed journals to blogs and websites, nearly every professional field has a written space in which the most recent technological developments relevant to the area are discussed. Stay current with technological trends by locating and reading any one of the many available publications written for bookkeepers and accountants.
- Ask technology specialists to explain what they are doing anytime they help you with a technological problem. While leaving technology to the experts may be tempting, you will significantly improve your skills by understanding what the technicians are doing. In most cases, technology specialists should be more than happy to explain their work, especially if you demonstrate that you are interested in learning to avoid having to call them back with the same problem in the future.
- Attend any training or workshops offered by industry bodies, professional associations or groups you are a member of.
Adapting to Change
- Ask a technology specialist to explain the systems in your workplace when a new system is implemented. Hearing about the systems directly from an expert, rather than through co-workers who may not necessarily understand them completely, will allow you to ask any questions.
- Streamline your technological experience. Make a list of the programs you use and what you use them for. Identify any redundant programs on the list and try eliminating software you do not need, making it much easier to stay informed about the remaining applications. If you use different programs to check your email from other locations or devices, investigate different versions of the same program that could enable you to use only one program to manage your email.
- Schedule a regular meeting with office tech support. Prepare a list of the programs and applications you use before the meeting and run the lists by the technology experts in your company to see if they have any suggestions on programs that could be upgraded or substituted. This meeting should be very short and will save time for your tech support if they can address problems pre-emptively rather than put out fires.
As an bookkeeper or BAS agent, it is necessary to stay up-to-date with the most recent advances in technologies to be competitive and increase your productivity. Embracing these changes will prove to be greatly beneficial to both you and your clients.
