The right finance professional in the right place

TriFinance's idiosyncratic ideas put the people with whom we, as an international network organisation, work and who take their careers into their own hands - Me inc.®'ers (me incorporated) - first. Their growth is the reason for our existence. We built multiple online tools to boost the careers of Me inc.® employees. With these tools, our Project Consultants indicate where they stand, where they want to go and when they want to switch. Hard and soft skills are covered. In this way we get a clear picture of the expertise, the potential, the ambition and the intrinsic motivation of the person involved.

We have recently combined this experience and practice with the ambition of Paul Kramer (53) and his organisation ‘businesscontroller.nu’ which he started in 2013 after a rich career as a finance professional and CFO. The online scans and development assessments he created match the 'why' and 'how' we do business. The partnership helps both partners to bring their knowledge and skills to the market more widely. Paul clarified his vision during our Virtual Expert Sessions, which TriFinance held during the corona lockdown.

"My common thread is that finance professionals do not always know themselves well and therefore cannot properly assess their potential," emphasises Paul. "As a result, you often come across people who don't feel good about themselves and for whom management allows training without knowing whether they fit the individual". Paul explains that in his career dozens of people regularly reported to him. "I was always busy with questions like: who fits where? Why is that employee sitting there and not in another place?" Finally, it made him start his business.

"In mapping out people's strengths, we look at both the professional side and the human aspects: motivation, gut feeling, internal blockages, irritation, emotion and everything that comes with it. We look for answers to questions such as: what is the power of the person involved? How do we get him in the right place? What is needed to do so?” He finds those answers through face-to-face assessments and online scans. "We use those resources in recruitment & selection, detecting training and development needs, team optimization, restructuring, helping people get into their strengths".

"We have two types of scans: one examines thinking power and the other looks at operational deployability. Thinking power has to do with questions such as: does someone think as a business controller or as a financial controller? Who are the talents within the team and who needs more support? Are the team members complementary in terms of thinking power and direction? Do I have financial controllers in a position as a business controller? And vice versa, because both functions require different capacities. Operational deployability has to do, for example, with the knowledge of Belgian GAAP or IFRS. Does the person in question understand his field of expertise?”

"Experience with thousands of scans has taught us that the quality of employees in their roles sometimes leaves something to be desired, but also that there are a lot of hidden talents among the respondents. The scans objectify that situation and that only brings benefits in case of a possible conversation with the employee. Moreover, thanks to the thousands of scans we have carried out in recent years, we can easily compare".

Paul also explains that he gives five possible answers to the questions of, for example, a scan of a controller. All are valid, but some more than others. The respondent should divide the available points over the answers. Anyone with a greater talent for business controlling will put the most effort into this. Those who go in the direction of finance controlling will give the corresponding answers the highest scores.

"We have scans for working professionals and for school leavers. By the way, there are no right or wrong answers. We look into people's minds in a way they haven't done before. The face-to-face assessment with which we do that takes longer and exceeds the professional scan because the employee is not only evaluated as an expert, but also a human being", concludes Paul.

Click here for more information about our assessment & development tools.