Story 6 to 10 will be posted on this page.
Enjoy reading.
If there’s something you find funny, just laugh out loud! (Good for your body.)
If there’s something resonate to your situation, then you know by now, you’re NOT alone. There’s a bunch of people out there experienced the same or even worse case than yours. So, learn to relax and think positively.
Again, you need to have at least some level of interest in your job, else, how would you bring yourself to get up from bed and go to work every day?
So, not only work hard but work smart. Look for some funs and joys at work. Try to think of ways to improve your way of doing your work, be it, automate the file by putting in some excel formula, simplify the file by removing ‘no-one-is-using’ info from the file, and tag on teamwork’s brain storming session on how to make the work more efficiently, even across the departments. That way, everyone can go back on time, at least. Why stay late when there are 1001 ways that would help you?
Be open-minded and creative. Cheers!
Story 6: Are They More ‘Authoritative’ Than The Government
“My previous company does things this way.” Grace, the newly hired Accounts Executive says this when I asked her if she has referenced her workings methodology to any guidelines.
(Oh… So, WHO are your previous company? Are they more ‘authoritative’ than tax authority of Singapore?) This was my instant respond, in my mind.
“Err… I think it would be better if you could cross-check against IRAS website (i.e. Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore that provides lots of useful information on tax treatment requirements).
“You are now with a new company; the reporting needs and policies might be different with what you have seen in your previous company. So, those ways of doing things that you have done in your previous companies, you could put them aside for now.
You need to tag onto the guidance reference that is a reliable source and able to ‘cover your backside’ (i.e. local way of saying ‘protect yourself or your work’). Imagine you are now being questioned by auditor, are you going to say “you done it this way because your previous company does things this way”? You get what I mean? If we referred to government’s guideline, that’s the final say that no one can pin-point us for referencing to the official published guidelines.” I explain my points to her. Hope that she gets some ideas from it.
Grace is the replacement Accounts Executive that my current employer has just hired. The one that tendered resignation was the Accounts Executive, Fenny, who has been with the company for nearly 5 years; she is a very capable and meticulous person. She has kept all the working and filings intact; completed with relevant supporting information one might think of. I felt headache when I received her resignation notice but can’t do much as she is going to help her family business next.
Grace has her working experiences that are value-added for her to take up this position; but still need to improve on certain area. Nothing wrong about it; I believe there is always room for improvements. No one is perfect.
Grace has an Accounts Assistant, Elly, to help her on daily paperwork tasks. Elly joined the company two months earlier than me. From what I observe, Elly is very prompt in arranging and handling her tasks. During the time when Fenny was still with the company, Elly would put in her own initiative to search for more info that she might be needed in getting her job done.
A good example that I could quote was when we have launched a new expense reimbursement application which is now all employees under any ASIA countries needs to start using it. Elly, spent time to get herself familiar with this new application or software, where to click if this happens, which way is faster in uploading a file, how to generate the report to do checking before submission. She did all those without any instruction or request from Fenny or me.
What an enthusiastic and self-motivated employee she is! She amazed me; frankly, she really did. She is a pretty quiet person in reality who only talks, when necessary, especially at work. But one day, during our lunch time, I initiated the conversation. I asked them what kind of songs they listening to and if they enjoy singing. Fenny said she only went to Karaoke with her family years back and she mostly listens to songs played by radio channels. Elly, the quiet person, told me she uses TikTok. Wah! So advance and courageous she is. Sing along with TikTok? She can really sing well, I guess; my goodness. I can only sing in the bathroom. Haha…
There was a period of time before we managed to get Grace onboard; Elly was temporarily loaded with some of Fenny’s jobs. Elly learnt all of them patiently from Fenny and hands-on each of the new tasks she needs to complete. No changes in timeline but now with more workloads. Stressful period we went through. Even my Human Resource personnel and my boss were worried that Elly might resign as we can see the work stress she is currently handling.
I have one-to-one discussion with Elly from time to time, to understand from her if anything that she might needs help, any difficulties she faced at her work. Elly voiced up some of the area that she needs to further clarification on how to do it. I am glad that she voiced it up; else I would not know how or where to help. I encourage her to voice up more about her opinion and suggestions at work; that would help in her job promotions. Her talents need to be seen by management team.
Story 7: I Am A Sponge
Learning journey never ends. We can still be learning even when we are at the age of 80s. I would always stay humble and bring myself to ask for guidance from my mentor or my superior when timing is right for me to do so. Learning from someone who has experienced those challenging situation, their insights and suggestions (most of them) are priceless. You would gain more knowledge in an instant rather than crunching it on your own. You don’t have to go through the same route that others had gone through; you can now choose a more efficient way and maybe can get it done more efficiently.
Practice this in your mindset – I am a sponge. I would absorb any new knowledge comes my way. Dare to ask and seek for clarity on certain information or when you are not sure about the instructions you received. Clarify beforehand is always better than having you gone and prepared a different thing (e.g. a wrong report) than what is requested.
If one is lucky enough to have a patient and good boss or superior, grab the chances to learn more from him or her.
I started off my accounting working path with Accounts Clerk after finished my secondary school; then moved up to Accounts Assistant. I took up Accounts Executive job after obtaining my LCCI certificate through the part-time classes. I study while working, paying off the course fee on my own. Next, I worked as Accountant when I finally completed my ACCA certificates through those tiring yet compact part-time classes after working hours… Those were the days where I need rush to night classes after work. The part-time classes’ syllabus is rather ‘short-cut’ as compared those students that attending day classes; night class only have 2 hours a day while day class has about 4 hours a day. It took me longer time to complete the test for the 13 papers. Each semester, one can take 4 subjects maximum for the exam but I done it with 2 subjects each semester. My time to study and get ready for exam is very limited; I need to balance my energy between work and study. So, better to do things slow and steady.
Next, I joined MNC as Senior Accountant (for Fixed Assets Department); then moved up to Assistant Finance Manager job that is far away from my home town as I would like to explore career opportunity in Singapore. When I get to work as Finance Manager, lucky that I had took up the ACCA collaboration with Oxford Brookes University program where I need to prepare a thesis under a mentor’s supervision; else, my salary will be lower than average Finance Manager. And now, I work as Finance Manager for APAC. Step-by-step, I go. Each job that I had; I would make sure I stick to it for at least more than 1 year; as sometimes interview panels would not recognize work experience one obtained within 1 year work experiences. How did I climb up the corporate level? Working experiences, I would say. My education qualification is at ACCA and that BSc secondary degree from that thesis program. I don’t have the chance to go University back then not because of my exam results but more on financial constrain. When I managed to save up some money later days from working, I no longer having the urge to study in University; I have other things that I would like to focus on. So, my accounting studies are more on touch-up on some updates through seminars and online information.
Along the way, I ask, I learn; I do research for more information, I learn; and work experiences grow…
Story 8: This Is Where I Train My Patience
But sometimes, when your boss is one with attitude, then you have no choice but to seek for guidance from third party professionals such as the tax agent and auditor appointed by the company. Sometimes, their advice might come with a cost as they charge by their professional hours spent on your queries; but sometimes, they would just reply you instantly over a phone call or email. So, keep a good working relationship with those professional service providers; they could be your go-to-source when you can’t find any useful tips from internet.
Bosses with attitude or character, well, I have met a bunch. One, challenge me to amend the financial results by bringing up front some sales invoices in future year, in order to show a better sales performance for this year. I refuse him and re-educate him that it is accounting regulations that prohibits us from manipulating the accounting work. We, accounts team have to be firm on our advice and what we are doing. Don’t take unnecessary risk in any wrong doing. When one has no ACCA qualification of practicing license, just make sure you don’t sign any financial reports as you are not qualified to sign them. Usually, auditor and tax agent would request company’s director(s) to sign them. So, what you can do is assist your directors in reviewing those reports.
Two, my superior comments that I have spent too much time on the reports my subordinates are preparing. I went speechless… (I, as their superior, shouldn’t I understand the reports that they are preparing and I would be their back-up person to attend to this report whenever they go on leaves, am I not?)
I just ignore this comment from her. This comment has just lowered the EQ and image I initially imagined she carries.
So, sometimes, it is them, not your faults. Think it through before taking all in as your own faults.
For those superiors with characters and attitudes, there has been a time where I annoyed by them so much, but now come to think of it, I have actually learnt to be patient from all those. I am a short-tempered person; I never know that I could ‘endure’ on those people for such a long time. It really levels up my patience level. And my vision on how to treat my team going forwards was triggered by their attitudes as well. I would alert myself for not taking the same footsteps as theirs and I would treat my team members and colleagues good.
We are all here to work and to earn a living and no point in having office politics. I still don’t understand why people likes office politics and creates small groups in the company, even in a company with less than 10 staff. Interesting… Anyway, I have no interest in that. Feel free to do what you want; don’t bother me.
Story 9: Participate In New Projects
When I joined this current employment, I took a review on my teams’ job scope and slowly observing their performance and work attitude through our daily correspondences.
I gave them training on how to prepare Cash Flow Forecast report which none of them has ever prepared one in their past working experiences. I guess some of them might find this task troublesome and stressful, for one, this is new to them; two, new task added onto their current workload. Hope they don’t hate me for this.
To me, having a chance to work on Cash Flow Forecast is value-added working experiences that they could add onto their CV. From the MNCs that I have worked for in the past, it is very depending on the finance department’s structure. Most MNCs would have each department clearly defined, i.e. Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Costing, Business Analyst, General Ledger, and even Fixed Assets department.
So, the chances of an Accounts Payable staff gets to learn or work on Account Receivable is very small. Only if the company opens for job rotation across finance departments; he or she could only have job rotation within Accounts Payable, i.e. exchange the country portfolio that they are handlings and so on.
But if you join a small or medium-sized company, their finance department probably only have a few staff and each is assigned to take up a wider scope of work. Pros: you get the chance to learn about each department’ work in one go. Cons: a lot of work and responsibilities are placed on you. Well, it helps you grow and enrich your working experiences.
I even invite my team to join in the year-end audit and tax exercise. Let them participate in attending to auditor’s requests as well as tax agent’s queries. This way, they would now understand why we, finance team keeps emphasizing on proper filing and detailed supporting information to each transaction. They get to learn what kind of information auditor and tax agent are looking for, what kind of reports or meaningful data is need to prepare upfront.
I have my team member (i.e. the accounts executive) be in the c.c. loop for all my email correspondences to auditor and tax agent; this is to let them learn how to respond to those professionals accordingly and when should we stand firm to our points and company policies. Sometimes, those junior auditors would just ask us for big and small items without giving it a thought beforehand. They just work according to the ‘checklist’ they have in hand. So, we should tell them otherwise how best to present our data.
Story 10: Be Brave And Go For It!
What you are doing now might actually similar to what an Assistant Finance Manager is doing. Yes, you are! Don’t underestimate your capabilities. Well, being an assistant finance manager, you might have to overseeing more companies’ finance work or managing bigger teams; your responsibilities are wider now but the basic work, more or less is what you have already learnt.
So, be brave and just go apply for the job that you want. Don’t stress too much on the education qualification they indicated on the job advertisement.
You Can Do It! Best of Luck!
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Thank you! You’re the First reader that has left me with such an encouraging comment! You made my day. If I wasn’t at work, I would be dancing ‘Baby Shark’ (that my niece learnt from her Pre-School and taught me the other day) in happy mode.
Love to have you here, cheers!
excellent points altogether, you simply received a new reader.
What may you recommend in regards to your post that you simply made a few days
ago? Any sure?
Thank you for your reading!
I would like to encourage each of us that works as an employee :
– To trust yourself more. You can do it! If you find the job ads interesting, just go for interview first, then decide.
– Even if there’s one or two job scopes that is totally new to you, we just go through the on-job-learning; it’s the company or the superior to guide new hirer. No one knows it all.
– During interviews, demonstrate what skills you’ve learnt from past employments that could help in your next job (new employer would like to know what ‘benefits’ they could get by having you in their team); what you’d do when you came across something you don’t know, e.g. self-initiative to search for relevant information from internet/ask peer network/ seek advice from professional (new employer would like to know that you can handle the job with least supervision); and dare to ask question(s) to the interview panel to find out more about the job scope (that demonstrates your interest in taking up the job).
– Observe and feel the interview panels and potential superior’s vibe. Interview session works both ways. If you find their energy is more towards negative / complaining / bias type, that already gives you hint, what type of people you’d work with if you take the job. Trust your intuition 😉
Thank you once again. Comments are welcome!
I am appropriately grateful for your blog article.Really looking concentrate on to log on more. Great.
Thank you for reading it, Yi Valenzula! Your message would be a big boost for me to continue writing. Have a great day! 😀