Harder financial skills are not neglected, however. Sodexho has individualized development plans for each finance member, and offers rotations across its six major divisions as well as at its Gaithersburg, Maryland, headquarters. -- A.N.
TECHNOLOGY: JOHNSON CONTROLS
Speaking the Same Language
Executives say the decision made five years ago to standardize tools across Johnson Controls has carried a number of career benefits for finance, including more opportunities to evaluate data rather than just gather it. Financial professionals benefit from dealing with different co-workers and managers during their careers, says senior vice president and CFO Steve Roell. "Nonetheless, working off common metrics is very valuable in how we communicate with each other."
Thanks to its electronic catalog of financial policies and procedures, and the gains that are coming with the rollout of a global enterprise resource planning system and unified general ledger (both to be completed within the next 18 months), everyone in the 734-person finance department now speaks the same language. And the initiatives led to the $17.2 billion Milwaukee-based company being ranked nearly 40 percent higher than the average company in its use of technology, according to the Best Workplaces survey.
At Johnson Controls, the initiatives have made a "world of difference" to employees, such as Deann Steimle, who recently returned to her role as vice president of finance for Johnson's Atlanta-based integrated facilities-management division after eight years in operations. Now, instead of being "someone who reports history," she says, she is able "to forecast out what we should be doing next." The challenge, she notes, is to preserve the purity of data coming in from the front lines of operations. And to that end, all reporting policies and procedures are available through the company's global intranet, and are updated quarterly.
One of the goals of the initiatives is to encourage creativity. A dedicated four-person IT staff helps implement and maintain the systems, but otherwise they act as consultants on new ideas. "Even though we have standard applications and procedures, if I can make something more efficient, I can go ahead and do it," says David Milton, manager of financial projects. --A.N.
JOB SATISFACTION: PUTNAM INVESTMENTS
Push for Performance
Job satisfaction starts with job content, believes Putnam Investments senior managing director and CFO Irene Esteves. So when she came to the Boston-based company four years ago, her first step was to redefine existing finance roles. Within three months, she was boosting the responsibilities associated with entry-level positions, stripping out middle management, and pulling certain analyst jobs into the department. Along with the structural changes, Esteves and corporate finance head Loren Starr also tended to individuals' career paths, making job rotations and twice-yearly performance reviews standard fare. "One of my objectives was to ensure that Putnam wouldn't have to go outside for a CFO ever again," she says.
The changes resulted in the departures of about half the staff over a four-and-a-half-year period, Esteves says, but helped attract new employees such as Edmund Wright, now vice president and financial planning and administration manager in the operations and administration division. Wright, a controller at a computer services firm before joining Putnam three years ago, wanted to gain a wide exposure to the financial services industry. But, he says, "as an outsider, it was hard for me to formulate a comprehensive career plan." Through six-month progress reviews and weekly one-on-one meetings, his managers have been "very helpful in coming up with that plan," he says. Having held three positions in two divisions since he started, Wright says he's been able to learn the inner workings of the company, which manages $339 billion in assets, as well as its place in the industry.
Since staffers chart their progress so often, Esteves doesn't issue formal satisfaction surveys in the 130-person department. Instead, she relies on more informal "walking around, going to staff meetings, talking to people during the review process." A human-resources staffer dedicated to finance, however, helps provide valuable insight into overall job satisfaction. -- A.N.
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