The survey was developed by Accountemps, the world's first and largest specialized staffing service for temporary accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals, and conducted by an independent research firm. It was based on telephone interviews with more than 1,400 CFOs across the United States.

Executives were asked, "Which one of the following do you think is the greatest source of work-related concerns for finance and accounting professionals?" Their responses:

Heavy workloads 35 %
Job security 19 %
Corporate governance
mandates/compliance issues 17 %
Personnel issues (e.g.,
coworker conflicts, office politics) 14 %
Work/life balance issues 11 %
None of these 2 %
Other/don't know 2 %

"The combination of compliance mandates, traditional projects and shifting priorities has challenged accounting and finance professionals to keep up with their growing workloads," said Max Messmer, chairman and CEO of Robert Half International and author of Human Resources Kit For Dummies. "The problem is further compounded by a shortage of highly skilled candidates in many specialties."

Messmer continued, "Managers should closely monitor employees' workloads to right any imbalances and maximize the productivity of the entire group. This might include realigning responsibilities, reprioritizing assignments and bringing in temporary support during peak activity periods."

About the Survey

The national study was developed by Accountemps, a specialized staffing service for temporary accounting, finance, and bookkeeping professionals. It was conducted by an independent research firm and is based on more than 1,400 telephone interviews with CFOs from a random sample of U.S. companies with 20 or more employees. For the study to be statistically representative and ensure that companies from all segments are represented, the sample was stratified by geographic region and number of employees. The results were then weighted to reflect the proper proportions of the number of employees within each region.