Recession biting finance staff

Media release                                       7 May 2009
 

Recession biting finance staff
 

The recession is biting the finance sector, with credit managers and auditors under increasing pressure to work more hours, while payroll clerks are actively job hunting as their work decreases.
 
The changing patterns show up in a survey of almost 1000 finance and accounting professionals in Auckland, carried out by international recruitment specialist Robert Half earlier this year.
 
The resulting 2009 Auckland Salary Guide shows that overall there has been a slight decrease in the percentage of finance professionals either actively seeking a new job or thinking about it. However the proportion of payroll clerks who are job hunting has jumped 66% (75% this year compared with 45% last year).
 
And every reason for seeking a new job has decreased, except the threat of redundancy. Last year it didn’t even rate as a separate reason, this year it was cited by 11%.
 
One of the reasons payroll clerks believe their jobs are under threat may be that their workloads have decreased dramatically since the beginning of 2008. Then, 27% of them said they were always or very often under pressure to work longer hours, this year only 13% of them report the same pressure.
 
And while 18% of them usually worked more than 46 hours a week last year, this year only 6% report the same workload.
 
But the boot’s on the other foot for credit managers and auditors, who are less likely to be seeking a new job, but are working longer hours and under increased pressure to extend them even further.
 
There has been a 71% increase in the proportion of credit managers working more than 45 hours a week (from 28% to 48%) and a 52% increase in the proportion of auditors working the same hours (from 31% to 47%).
 
Despite working those increased hours, they are increasingly under pressure to work even longer, with a 75% increase in the proportion of credit managers saying they are always or very often under such pressure, and a 39% increase in the proportion of auditors reporting the same pressure.
 
Robert Half senior manager Megan Alexander said the results mirrored the change recruitment consultants were seeing, with cost-containment specialists, and generalists who could turn their hand to several tasks, most in demand.
 
But she warned employers not to over-burden their key staff, pressuring them to work such long hours they experienced burn-out.
“It is obviously important to businesses to ensure their creditors pay them, and their processes are as efficient as possible. But it’s just as important that your staff have the energy and enthusiasm to continue working productively – and they can’t do that if they are burnt out”
 
Ms Alexander noted that more than half of all survey respondents said they sometimes came into work when they were sick, and 17 per cent of them said they always did. Mostly this was because of workload, pressure from line managers and looming deadlines.
 
“This sort of pressure, coupled with ever-increasing workload, will only lead to decreasing morale and increasing sick leave. Potentially, it can also prompt key members of staff to leave the business – which will place remaining staff under even more pressure.”
 
The 2009 Robert Half Auckland Salary Survey was completed online from 28 January until 11 February.  It attracted responses from 958 finance professionals, evenly split between men and women, 64% of whom had 10 or more years’ experience.  The results of the survey were collated and analysed by Galaxy, an independent market research company.
 
A full copy of the 2009 Robert Half Auckland Salary Survey can be ordered online at www.roberthalf.co.nz
  
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