Years back when I had to choose between majoring in Finance (read Finance &
Years later I found myself at a
...and then I found myself answering the why (why me and my team are here doing what we do) with: "To change the perception of Finance". So I am back where I started - the reason I ran scared from HR is now the exact same challenge facing me in the field of Finance. My experience has even showed me that HR is actually much closer involved with day to day operations and seems to have a solid place in the value chain. Finance on the other hand is still categorized as "The Beancounters" and my strategy for my current position is to change the perception "From Beancounters to Business Partners" Therefore I ask myself: "Where did it go wrong?"
Nowadays every function finds itself faced with the essential question of how it creates value. While it might seem easy to answer for departments like Commercial/Sales - selling the products, Operation - operating the assets or Technical/Production - building or producing the assets/products, it is more difficult for support functions like HR, Legal, Finance, etc. So faced with the threat of being stripped down to a purely corporate governance function every support function is running wild trying to justify how they can create value.
So what happened when Finance really tried to create value by themselves? Financial crisis! Even before that there were several scandals (Enron, WorldCom etc.) to detriment the reputation of Finance. Other functions have not had similar major negative events working against them and that's probably also why HR now seems closer to the daily value creation than Finance.
So how do we reinstate the good name of Finance? One thing is that we need to become better business partners and show a genuine passion and understanding for other more value creating functions. I think that it is one of the most important discussions for the Finance function these days:
https://www.proformative.com/questions/how-be-great-business-partner#comment-6781
...but I see no actual stories shared of how it was done. I don't hear any successes that the rest of us can follow and try and apply to our own organizations. I see a lot of good intentions and suggestions of how to do it. But did it actually work in real life? So if you are out there with a good story of how you or your organization succeeded making Finance a truly recognized business partner and not just referred to as beancounters then share your story! Help reinstate the reputation of Finance and create some value for the companies we work for.
Can I say that my efforts have been a success so far? Not really but we have a clear strategy of how to get there however we have also realized that it will not happen overnight. It will take at least some years but when we finally succeed I will for sure share our story!
So back to discussion of choosing Finance over HR. I am not disappointed with my choice and I actually find the challenge rather exciting. Maybe I just shouldn't have run scared in the first place.