Jury out on whether FDs are scapegoats
We asked FDs: Are too many FDs made to pay with their jobs when things go wrong in a company?
The nation’s finance directors are divided over whether they are made scapegoats when things go wrong within a company, according to this week?s Accountancy Age/Reed Accountancy Big Question survey.
Link: Last week’s Big Question
Just over 50% of respondents said they felt FDs were not forced to resign when problems were revealed, while just over a third said they were forced to quit.
‘My opinion is that some FDs are paid too highly for the amount of mistakes they make,’ said one FD. Another FD disagreed: ‘You accept the rewards of the job, you accept the penalties for failure.’
Yet another, was even more damning: ‘There are not enough finance directors held accountable when financial discrepancies do arise. It appears that there is a culture whereby FDs are forced to tender their resignation by the board of directors rather than resigning after having reviewed their own and their company’s performance.’