Menlo Park, Calif. — Oct. 26

When it comes to career development for accountants, the “ABCs” may matter as much as the “123s”, a new Accountemps survey suggests. Thirty-one percent of chief financial officers interviewed named communication as the area where employees need to improve the most. Twenty-six percent of executives would like to see stronger leadership abilities, while 14 percent said gaining functional, job-specific skills is the top priority for their department’s staff.

The survey was developed by Accountemps, a staffing service for temporary accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals. It was conducted by an independent research firm and is based on interviews with 1,400 CFOs from a stratified random sample of U.S. companies with 20 or more employees.

CFOs were asked, “Which one of the following is the area where you’d like to see your employees in your department improve the most?” Their responses:

• Communication: 31 percent.
• Leadership: 26 percent.
• Functional, job-related skills: 14 percent.
• Strategic planning: 12 percent.
• Project management: 12 percent.
• Don’t know/no answer: 5 percent.

Source: Accountemps