Issue with time off - accountants help...

[Lomita277]

Last September I moved from practice to a medium sized privately owned company. It was a big change but I am generally very happy with it. Also, there was a long training period as I am replacing someone who held the position for over 40 years. One thing that was not made known to me when I interviewed or when I started was that this individual never took time off, and when she did, it was always a long weekend. I have the usual annual leave in my contract as 20 days. This company has a tradition of people specialising in all functions of their department without any cross training being encouraged.

I am an expatriate living in a very small country which I really like to get out of from time to time. It is really important to my mental health! I have already stood my ground with my boss twice to get mid week time off and he gave it to me but that was while the individual that I'm replacing was still there to cover.

I can understand that I can't be away during month end procedures and that is fine as I can organise around that but I'd like to take two weeks next March to visit family (an 11 hour flight away) and I can see this as not being accepted at all.

Can anyone let me know if they had the same problem? How did you work around it?

To be honest, (and I would say it directly to my management) I would never have taken the job if I understood that I wasn't supposed to take holidays and I believe that it is not my fault if the company has a culture of not being able to cover for people when they are away. I am not too far off retirement age and here it is pretty easy to walk in to similar positions so if they can't meet me halfway, I'm pretty certain I'll leave.

I’m in a similar position, totally responsible for all financial functions and due to work loads have felt pressure to not take more than a week off. Recently I took 10 days for a special holiday at a time which is traditionally busy but I pulled timelines forward and management were fine about it. Maybe your predecessor was too conscientious and your management will be expecting you to take more time off- have you sounded them out about what their concerns would be?

My view is if you were off sick suddenly what would their plan be? If the role is so busy you can’t take time off should you have a PT assistant or if it’s covering invoice processing, a temp.

If March isn’t financial year end and you’re not processing a big company payroll everything else should be able to wait.

Cross training should be encouraged, it leaves them in a vulnerable position to be so reliant on people who can only do certain roles. If someone goes off sick or leaves suddenly how are they going to function.

How big is your team - is there a team beneath you at all?
And what's your seniority?
How much scope do you have to bring about change?

Can you introduce some resilience and cover in people's work? Eg swap about some comparable job tasks/responsibilities between people.
As a basic example, can the person doing accounts payable learn about accounts receivable. etc etc...
And I'd always make sure that there was cover for payroll.
I'd be pointing out that not having adequate cover and resilience is a risk factor for the company.

Incidentally, how does anyone manage to take holiday if everyone is so siloed?

But essentially, if you aren't able to take two consecutive weeks off without a standoff, then may be start looking for a new job.

So, our company is a service provider and follows a divisional structure based on the service it provides. Each division has one or two people who handle all the accounting functions, with our boss being the CFO in our division and forwarding on completed accounts to the head office. I am now the only person in my division which accounts for a substantial percent of the revenue generated at our location. We have a trainee, and it was promised that he would take on some of my duties.

While training I meticulously documented everything I learned so I could cross train with another division leader. It's just that the company is a very old company and many of the employees have fallen in to the way things have always been done over the years so I am going to have to push to get this done. It will be very good for the company though.

It's very bad practice for finance people not to have to take a block of holiday in one go. Not taking holiday is a big red flag that you're doing something dodgy.

This! They should actually encourage people to take weeks off, it's good practice to avoid/detect fraud.

I have worked in accounts/finance all my life and whilst I'd say it's fairly restrictive career as there is always month ends/forecast/budget/year end, I've always managed to have a week or 2 weeks off at some point. Usually either have cover, just scale back on non essential tasks that month or catch up when I'm back. If there are any duties that have to be done every day/week (raising payments etc) then that definitely should have cover. What if you were sick!

With 20 days (which seems mean to be honest) I would expect to be able to take 2 weeks, then 1 week then 5 odd days. Im the only one who does my job, i prepare ahead then catch up

I too have encountered this. It is a red flag because it shows their lack of respect for a work-life balance. A workers 'protected time' should be respected. I would turn it around on them and show how vulnerable the business is if only one person is responsible. 'we need to ensure a cover plan is place to support the business function'.
Ask them to clarify what cover plan is in place. The onus is on the firm to put this in place.

Just book your holiday on the system! See what happens! Boss will then need to deny and reply, digging his own hole!

Fellow chartered accountant with experience in forensic accountancy. The whole set up should have your alarm bells ringing.

Team of long standing employees who never seem to leave.

All tasks and departments put into individual silos with no cross training or overlap.

Deliberately small team sizes (just one or two people).

A culture of not taking holiday.

All are red flags for illegal activities. I would be asking awkward questions and be prepared to leave.

I’ve been in accounting a long time, it’s almost impossible to take 2 weeks off straight but you should manage 1. Definitely rings alarm bells if you can’t from a controls point of view.

I'd add my dp is the boss so really can't fully take extended periods off but he manages to be mostly off with just a few emails and to monitor the banking, not ideal but still a holiday