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Connecting and teaming with representatives of other functions in your company is important as you continue to develop your career in HR.  How are you viewed by others? Do they recognize your contributions? How have you interacted with them? What have you done to help them be successful? Will they be supporters of you for your next career move?

Learning how to partner effectively with your finance department is probably one of the most critical as Human Capital continues to be an increasing cost as well as an investment in the company's success.  However, it is more than this.  How you communicate contributes to how others think of you, and it impacts your personal brand.  Is your finance colleague avoiding your calls or simply too busy to return them?  How can you influence them to set a higher priority on your requests?  Do you solicit their ideas for how you might do something differently and/or more efficiently?

Depending on your role, your interaction with the finance group will vary, but all HR professionals should seek to learn more about the business and how the various roles are aligned with business goals.

Start by understanding the finance teams' roles, priorities, and preferred way to communicate.  The easiest way to learn is to ask.  Roles vary considerably across organizations, not only due to organization size and structure, but also complexity - e.g. global, matrixed, ownership.  For example, in small companies the CFO and Controller roles may be combined. What competencies are expected for each role?   How similar or different are these to your own competencies? What behaviors might you expect?

Financial analysts, as their name implies, tend to be extremely detail-orientated and have strong analytical skills.  They will not only produce reports from the masses of data available, but also interpret them to show where we have been, identify trends and produce forecasts.  While we want to avoid stereotypes, and encourage you to find out more about their individual preferences for communication, it is likely that they have heavy workloads, are inundated with emails, and prefer short, concise communications that get to the point and include all the necessary information.  They tend to be planners and be highly organized. They may strongly dislike fire drills, so allow a reasonable lead time for requests for reports, information, data, etc.  Your priority may not be their's, so check to see if they can commit to delivering within your timeframe.

Controllers are responsible for financial reporting, regulatory compliance, and oversee accounting functions.  In particular, they tend to like to know about major costs, problems or bad news as soon as possible.  Similar to the financial analyst, they may have a high attention to detail and strong analytical skills.  Not only are they likely to be problem solvers, they may be adept at juggling multiple priorities and projects - implementing and executing flawlessly.  Bring possible solutions not just ideas to controllers. Until the idea is flushed out, they may not be ready to listen.

Chief Financial Officers are on the leadership team, are a strategic partner to the CEO, and will be responsible for managing the financial risks.
"Today’s CFOs are expected to play four diverse and challenging roles. The two traditional roles are steward, preserving the assets of the organization by minimizing risk and getting the books right, and operator, running a tight finance operation that is efficient and effective. It’s increasingly important for CFOs to be strategists, helping to shape overall strategy and direction, and catalysts, instilling a financial approach and mind set throughout the organization to help other parts of the business perform better. "  Deloitte. 

As strategists, the CFO is focused on ways to grow the revenue, as well as manage costs, and is likely to respond to your ideas on ways to accomplish this. When communicating ideas that will involve addition cost, discuss the return on the investment and any financial risk.  Seek the CFOs advice and input. When looking for measures to support your proposal, your CFO is likely to be a good sounding board for identifying which metrics to select.

When talking with finance leaders, expect your ideas/recommendations to be challenged.  It is the analytic mind checking that all the details have been thought through, and that all the implications have been considered.  Consider their decision making preferences.  While you may prefer collaboration, do they? Can you be direct, decisive and action-oriented when appropriate? Are they resistant to change or embrace it?

Welcome the diverse view points - and learn to partner early in the process to avoid surprises, and to ensure buy-in. 


To learn more about CFOs and Finance team challenges, read business reports, articles and discuss.