Accounts Payable Success

In a world full of uncertainties how do you keep your staff onboard with the vision and goals of the company? So many times, companies forget who they’re really servicing, who is really important. It’s not only your clients but it’s your staff as well. Now don’t get me wrong, we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the client, but let’s face it, if your staff is unhappy and disgruntled so will be your clients. Even if you’ve got one “bad apple” if you allow that “bad apple” to fester in the bushel, you’re going to eventually end up with a rotten bushel of apples. How can one bad apple spoil all the good ones you ask? As I’ve consulted in many different companies both in healthcare and elsewhere, over the years I’ve come across many “bad attitudes” and I’ve seen how the infection can spread, if not dealt with promptly. It can be anywhere from someone not being promoted when they thought they should have been or having someone in the wrong capacity, meaning they hate what they’re doing. Remember the old adage, “misery loves company”. Human beings want to know they’re appreciated and valued and when they’re not, they tend to let the world know it, whether it be intentionally or not.

On my last consulting project, I came onboard a major corporation, who we’ll call XYZ, who was working on outsourcing their accounting department, which none of the staff was aware of. The goal was to get all of the accounts current, then slowly work on the outsourcing, thus eliminating the majority of the staff. Eight of the eleven employees were temporary, hoping to gain a permanent position within the company. When I was first brought on, one of my objectives was to do a major vendor cleanup, bringing over 3,000 accounts current within only two months. For years, staff had gone untrained and unsupervised, causing an accountants worse nightmare. The department had a horrible reputation and became known as the “revolving door”, the supervisor didn’t care, so why should the staff, and it showed in every way imaginable. Vendors either weren’t being paid at all or were paid thousands more than they should have been because invoices were being keyed to their account in error. When you’re vendors aren’t happy the whole company hears about it. The XYZ would call a vendor to schedule services only to hear an earful about how they had many past due invoices and refused services until they were paid. Now I won’t say that this one department brought down the moral of the whole company, but it sure did make a negative impact. Not only was the vendor unhappy but now the employee trying to schedule services is upset because they just got an earful for something that was out of their control. It’s a trickle effect and if left untreated, can cause a company of low morale.

After getting in and analyzing the situation, I quickly realized the near impossible task that was set before me. Not only did I have to figure a way to get these accounts current in two months (which took years of tangling), but I had to find a way to motivate the team, that simply didn’t care anymore, to do so. The first thing I did was I spent a whole week meeting with the team, asking questions, setting expectations of what I was going to be asking of them, and getting an overall perspective of their view of the company. The one-on-one wasn’t just to get to know the individual, but it was also to get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses. I wanted to know if their current roles were in theirs and the company’s best interest. It’s amazing how people will open up when they feel like someone in authority actually cares and is there to help and I was shocked at what I learned, if not horrified. The supervisor, who was still there but had been demoted, had run the department into the ground. The department had such a bad reputation and a horrible morale, I wondered if I had bitten off more than I could chew. Not only did the staff lack proper training, but there was gossiping, cheating, favoritism, tattle telling, and so on and so forth, you get the picture. I thought I had heard it all, until I spoke with a lady who we’ll call Emily. Emily was a permanent employee who had been there for five years, but had recently fallen ill to Multiple Sclerosis. She had been struggling with this illness for several years that finally landed her in a wheelchair. Emily, being a single mother, was eventually forced to work part-time. After only being on this consulting job for a few days, I quickly realized she wasn’t well liked within the department and I wondered why. When she and I had our one-on-one meeting I saw a person with a great deal of knowledge and experience, not to mention a great outlook on life, so why did she not have the best image within the department. Turns out that the supervisor didn’t like her and was trying to get her fired. Before Emily’s illness had been diagnosed, the supervisor told her it was all in her mind and she was a hypocondriac and would talk about her to the other employees. She would overload as much work on Emily as possible and then ignore her requests for help, watching and waiting for Emily to slowing sink into failure. Emily had far more experience than anyone there, including the supervisor, yet nobody was allowed to ask her any questions. In short, the supervisor ostracized Emily from the team. The team, most of them being new, began to have a negative impression of Emily without really having a valid reason. Turns out that Emily wasn’t the only person feeling this way. The supervisor had one favorite person and this individual could do no wrong, even though she had been caught in numerous lies and had basically been allowed to do as she pleased. Everyone sat there watching as this “favored” employee did as she pleased and got away with it, what kind of environment do you think this caused?

After getting a clear picture of what and who I had to work with, I started formulating a “plan of action”. The first task on the agenda was to institute proper training. This company had three different systems that the staff had to work with, two for accounting, and one for operations. Nobody had been properly trained on these systems, nor was there a training manual in place. Now I know what you’re thinking, why would you worry about implementing a training manual when they were going to outsource and in most scenarios I might agree, but we had years of cleanup to do within a very short amount of time and the cleanup had to be done right this time. The manual wasn’t fancy nor did it cover every intricate detail of “what ifs or what to do’s” but it served as a central focus point of reference for the team to fall back on. In this manual, I included a list of “who does what” and sent it out to every department within the company. A common problem was that nobody knew who to go to and vendors or internal customers would be passed around like a hot potato; nobody wanted to deal with the irate vendor but didn’t know where to send them. I also facilitated some one hour sessions of system training. Remember Emily who had been ostracized, turns out she was a wiz with the systems and knew all kinds of shortcut keys. One key ingredient to making a strong team is recognizing each individual’s talents and strengths, then allowing them to shine in that capacity. Watching Emily glow as she was once again able to contribute to the team was a gift in itself. Not only did the whole team benefit from her knowledge, but for the first time she felt appreciated and part of the team.

After I felt comfortable that the team had been properly trained and had all of the necessary tools to succeed, I implemented metrics and measurements. Imagine being told “just get it done” but not being told how much and how often it needed to be done, thus having nothing to measure against. People want to have clear expectations and to be measured on their accomplishments; a little friendly competition can do wonders for an under motivated department, as long as you keep it fun! With the metrics, we started tracking the number of active accounts we had, the number of past due invoices, and the number of invoices currently coming in. Not only did this set a clear understanding of how bad things were, but it gave us a way to track how much better things were getting. To stirrup bit of that “friendly competition” I started having weekly goals and small incentives. For example, the person with the least amount of unprocessed invoices got to leave an hour early one day. Now with this huge cleanup effort in place, the first thing to do was to evaluate what was on everyone’s desk (and hiding inside!) in order to determine if the workload was spread out evenly. Of course you will always have some employees that are stronger and faster than others, but you want to be careful not to set them up to fail by expecting too much. It’s natural that you would start leaning on an individual who always proved to be reliable, but you must be careful not to over do it burning them out, or that it comes off as having a favorite. Let them know that you want them to be challenged and to go above and beyond, but let them tell you what they can and can’t do. If you feel as though they are setting their goal too low, try some positive encouragement. Most of the time, if you let someone know you expect more out of them, they won’t want to disappoint. The key is building up their self esteem of themselves and letting them know you believe in them.

After outlining the enormous workload we were up against, I decided to lay it all out on the table for the team to see. We started having weekly team meetings and in the meeting we would discuss the metrics and where we were at with the cleanup effort, in addition to recognizing those who had gone above and beyond. Don’t forget, recognition can go a long way in boosting moral, but you’ll want to be careful since some people don’t like being the center of attention. In these cases you can find more discrete ways of recognizing someone for their efforts, but it’s still important to do so even if it’s a pat on the back. It was enlightening to watch everyone come together as a team and volunteer to help one another. A problem would be presented and the team, as a whole, would discuss how they would conquer. More times than not, a supervisor will go it alone in trying to determine a solution to a problem, but in my experiences I’ve found that if you allow the team to be part of the decision making process, they will feel as though they are partially responsible for seeing the solution come to fruition and everyone comes out on top. This approach teaches teamwork, but it also gives them the sense of feeling important and needed. Not only was the main objective met, of getting the word done, they all felt as though if one was going to fall they would all fall together.

Along the path to getting the accounts clean, the difficult task of keeping the staff on board was an ongoing issue. Remember, the majority of the team was temporary and had no idea if they would ever be hired on. Understanding so, they would frequently ask when they would be hired. For me this was an extremely difficult situation because I had an obligation to the organization to keep things confidential, which I would never have compromised, but on the other hand I am a person of integrity and didn’t want to lie to anyone. I couldn’t look them in the face and tell them they would be hired someday, knowing full well that most their positions would soon be eliminated, but I needed to find a way of keeping them onboard for as long as possible. Now if you’ve ever been in a situation like this or something similar then you know my pain. Much of my team was made up of single mothers, struggling to make ends meet, but who deserved advancement, if only someone would give them a fair shot. How was I going to build them up to succeed only to watch them fall when the outsourcing took affect? How was I going to motivate them to work on the cleanup, without compromising my integrity and making empty promises? One thing I’ve learned over the years is no matter where you’re at or what you’re doing, you should take advantage of the experience you’re obtaining; you never know when you’ll need it. I have worked at many companies and I have to say, I’ve learned something with every place I’ve been and it has made me who I am today. Even if the employees couldn’t stay in that department, that didn’t mean they couldn’t advance within the company. See, by now the team had done a complete 360 and had regained its reputation. They were now known as a team who was there to help, not only the vendors (the external customer) but also other departments (the internal customers). For once they were actually proud of working in the accounts payable department and had a sense of achievement, which they could take with them. My goal was not only to get the accounts cleaned up, but to build a strong team atmosphere. If I could ever give one piece of advice to supervisors or managers, it’s not always what you’re doing, but it’s more who you’re doing it with. Here was a team that, for the most part had always worked in accounts payable. At some point they hated their job, but it wasn’t the job itself, it was the environment. Once they came together as a team, they started learning how to work together in unison and built a strong bond amongst each other. Sure there were still differences of personalities, and an occasional disagreement, but over all they were happy and proud to work together. When I first started, I would go into an office that was dull and dreary, but overtime I would come into an office where people were smiling and laughing. What was even better was when I noticed the accounts payable team interacting with other departments, working together for improvements across the board.