Increased Financial Transparency Influences Employee Confidence, Place Technology Survey Finds

Financial turbulence resulting from COVID-19 makes the case to democratize financial data across organizations, teams

Place Technology (Place), a leading financial forecasting solutions provider for SaaS and professional services companies, announced the results of a market survey analyzing company financial transparency and employee confidence in financial performance entering the new year.

“The desire for transparency is indicative of a larger trend around the future of business that we saw play out most recently with the Slack acquisition”

The “Financial Transparency and Employee Confidence Survey” found that transparency into business performance and financial data is a key factor in employee confidence. More than half of all respondents (54 percent) said the frequency of their company’s financial updates has not increased since the COVID-19 outbreak, yet 65 percent said they could make a more effective contribution if they had greater visibility into financial performance.

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“The data silos that exist between internal teams—particularly between finance and the rest of the business—simply aren’t sustainable and leave financial performance open to interpretation,” said Brandon Metcalf, CEO and co-founder of Place. “Employees crave transparency and want to understand how financial performance influences overall business strategy so they can better contribute to it. Everyone benefits when financial performance is integrated into operations. Companies and leaders can build trust and confidence with their staff, while employees are empowered with more information to do their best work.”

More than any other group, entry-level employees feel the impact of financial obscurity. The survey found that only 26 percent are updated on their company’s financial performance monthly, while 27 percent said they are never updated on their company’s projected performance. Nearly half of entry-level employees (47 percent) are either not confident in their company’s financial performance or lack the information to determine it.

There is also a higher degree of confidence when the frequency of financial updates increases. Sixty-four percent of entry-level employees who received more frequent updates since COVID-19 expressed confidence in their company’s financial performance compared to just 46 percent of those who didn’t.

That correlation is even more pronounced among all respondents across organizations. Seventy-six percent of those who receive more frequent updates said they were confident in financial performance compared to just 53 percent of those who receive similar or fewer updates since the COVID-19 outbreak.

“The desire for transparency is indicative of a larger trend around the future of business that we saw play out most recently with the Slack acquisition,” Metcalf said. “Companies are turning to technology to break down information bottlenecks and align every team behind a customer-centric mission. The best strategy for achieving that goal is through a connected platform that drives collaboration between business functions and gives companies more tools to serve more customers in new and creative ways.”

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Other key survey findings include:

• Of those being asked to contribute to company financial projections, only 39 percent said they are very confident that the systems and processes they use produce accurate data.
• Only 42 percent of respondents expressed a high degree of confidence in their company’s ability to execute its 2021 business plan, while 49 percent said they are only somewhat confident.
• Eighty-one percent of managers who have received more frequent updates since the COVID-19 outbreak expressed confidence in financial performance compared to 55 percent of those who haven’t.

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