Things That Burn Out Dedicated Finance Employees — #1: The Unintentionally Intentional Excuse Ladder
- Darcy Kindred
- Aug 3
- 5 min read
Things That Burn Out Dedicated Finance Employees — #1
The Unintentionally Intentional Excuse Ladder
Now that I’ve had the opportunity to step away from the daily grind of the finance industry, I’ve been reflecting on some of the workplace practices that contribute to burnout, anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges among dedicated accounting and finance professionals.
Many of these practices are not openly acknowledged. They become accepted as simply “the way the organization works,” even when they create unnecessary stress, conflict, and dysfunction.
The first pattern I want to highlight is something I call an Excuse Ladder.
I suspect there will be several types of Excuse Ladders discussed in future articles. This first one is:
The Financial Reporting Excuse Ladder
Accounting and finance employees are particularly vulnerable to burnout in toxic or poorly managed workplaces.
Their job is not simply to record transactions or produce reports for regulatory compliance. They are also expected to organize information in a way that helps managers understand what has happened, evaluate performance, and make better decisions going forward.
After all, it is difficult to manage the future without a clear understanding of past results.
The problem begins when finance is expected to provide accurate and meaningful reporting, but the departments responsible for supplying the underlying information do not provide it, do not update it, or do not provide it on time.
Finance then becomes trapped in a cycle of repeatedly correcting reports, revising processes, and responding to criticism.
Instead of receiving cooperation, the accounting and finance department may be blamed for producing inaccurate or unhelpful information—even when the department criticizing the reports failed to provide the information needed to prepare them properly.
In more dysfunctional organizations, that criticism is then communicated upward to executive management. This allows departmental leaders to redirect attention away from their own performance problems and toward alleged failures in the finance department.
That is how the Financial Reporting Excuse Ladder begins.
How the Excuse Ladder Works
Here is a simplified example.
Department Manager: “I don’t have good financial information.”
Accounting and Finance: Provides the available financial information.
Department Manager: “This information is wrong. Here is additional information that should have been included.”
Accounting and Finance: Updates the report and distributes corrected information.
The department manager is then questioned about poor performance.
Department Manager: “The corrected information came too late. This isn’t my fault.”
Accounting and Finance: Changes the reporting process to make the information faster, clearer, and more accurate.
Department Manager: “The report is too detailed. I can’t understand it.”
Accounting and Finance: Attempts to be responsive. The report is simplified and summarized.
The department manager continues to receive questions from senior management.
Department Manager: “The report isn’t detailed enough.”
Accounting and Finance: Returns to more detailed reporting and attempts once again to provide additional support and explanation.
Eventually, executive management and departmental management conclude that the accounting and finance department is responsible for the organization’s reporting and decision-making problems.
The cycle then begins again.
Rinse, Wash, Repeat
This type of behaviour can become a deliberate—or at least conveniently tolerated—method of spreading, avoiding, or redirecting blame.
The accounting and finance employees caught in the middle become stressed and demoralized.
They attempted to solve the problem.
They provided the best information available to them.
They were then told the information was wrong, even though they had not been given all the information required to prepare it properly.
They corrected the reports, often using formats and practices that are widely accepted across the industry.
They were then told the reports were too detailed, too complicated, too late, too summarized, or not summarized enough.
The target keeps moving.
Eventually, it becomes impossible to satisfy anyone because the real objective is no longer to improve the reporting. The reporting process has become a convenient explanation for why another department’s performance is not meeting expectations.
This is one high-level example.
Now imagine the same cycle happening every month, involving one or two different departments at a time.
It is easy to see how burnout develops.
Dedicated employees begin to feel that no matter how hard they work, how quickly they respond, or how much they improve the process, they will still be blamed when the results are unpopular.
That is not a reporting problem.
It is a leadership and accountability problem.
What Is the Solution?
Based on what I have observed across numerous organizations, the solution begins with stronger executive leadership and clearer expectations around communication, accountability, and collaboration.
Executive management must reinforce that accurate reporting is a shared organizational responsibility.
The accounting and finance department cannot report information that it does not receive. Departmental managers must be responsible for providing accurate operational data, explaining material changes, meeting reporting deadlines, and participating in the development of meaningful performance measures.
Finance leaders should also be included in planning meetings, operational reviews, and discussions about performance.
Too often, accounting and finance personnel are excluded from key meetings and then expected to somehow understand the operational decisions that were made, the assumptions behind them, and the metrics that management wants to measure.
Finance should not be brought in only after a problem has occurred.
When finance leaders and departmental managers work together from the beginning, they can agree on:
-what information will be measured;
-who is responsible for providing it;
-how often it will be reported;
-what level of detail is required;
-how results will be interpreted; and
-what actions should follow when performance falls below expectations.
Not all reporting begins and ends with the accounting and finance department.
Many key performance indicators depend on operational information that must be collected, maintained, and explained by individual departments.
When departments fail to recognize that responsibility—or intentionally withhold information because of internal politics, territorial behaviour, or “kingdom building”—the Excuse Ladder is almost inevitable.
And when leadership allows that behaviour to continue, the employees who are trying hardest to make the organization function are often the ones who burn out first.
About the Author
Darcy Kindred is the founder of Paddle Forward (www.paddleforward.ca) a mental health advocacy initiative built around honest storytelling, outdoor healing, and the belief that difficult experiences can be used to create understanding and positive change. After spending over 30 years working in the financial sector and organizational leadership, he now writes about the workplace and life conditions that contribute to burnout, depression, anxiety, and the loss of dedicated employees.
Through Paddle Forward, Darcy shares both personal experiences and broader observations about mental health, resilience, toxic workplace culture, and the role the outdoors can play in recovery. His goal is not simply to criticize unhealthy systems, but to encourage better conversations, stronger leadership, and workplaces where people can succeed without sacrificing their well-being.
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