An article I read where there was poor communication was about a company called Glow Networks
out of Texas that has a verdict of $70 because of employee discrimination (Bachman, E., 2022). a The
actions within this company violated several laws 42 U.S.C.1981 and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights
Act (Bachman, E., 2022). Unequal treatment should not be tolerated in an organization. a Because of
lack of communication under cultural expectations and accountability this company has put
themselves at risk of financial ruin. a They have also put themselves at risk with the expectations of
cultural social responsibility. a This issue should be addressed by hiring a corporate culture expert,
consulting with HR, Corporate Lawyers and marketing teams creating a sold plan and training to
change the cultural expectations. The parties that participated in the illegal actions should be
terminated if they are not. a Leadership should go through specific training courses along with a
specific communication plan on how to handle such actions in the future. a
So, reflecting on my prior experience I drew a blank on a situation that something was
miscommunicated to me or my fellow employees, as they did not like to tell us unless we needed
to know so they felt the why was an unimportant thing we just needed to know the how which is a
problem in and of itself. Because of this I investigated companies that failed to communicate, and I
landed on the Toyota Motor Corp in 2016 they attempted to downplay or write off the fact that
they had released vehicles that had a flawed brake system. However, they decided that it was a
problem once Consumer Reports withdrew their recommendations for eight of the vehicles. So,
they recalled these vehicles finally after several serious injuries and deaths. When considering the
message this send it would appear the company cared little for its customers as it was willing to
send a product to market that injured or even killed them. However, no company would reasonably
do this, as it is bad customer service. a a a
In the accounting field, business changes without proper communication between all departments
can cause serious issues with financial reporting. At my previous employer, we had two separate
changes, one coming from our parent company and the other from our own IT department
happening at once. a The parent company operated on one version of Oracle for their accounting
software and the subsidiary on a different version that would periodically, or manually when
needed, upload into the parent company’s system and had to flow through a mapping process to
align the account numbers as the two versions had different account values. a The subsidiary
company was performing a major Oracle upgrade that was supposed to commence after the month
end closing activities had finished. At the same time, the parent company had decided to move a
division of the subsidiary’s business to wholly operate on their version of Oracle. a This action was to
be performed by the subsidiary company’s accounting team also during month end close. a Neither
of these changes were fully communicated between the parent company’s finance team
responsible for the subsidiary and all members of the subsidiary’s accounting team.
Several large issues arose from the lack of proper communication of these two major changes to
the employees in both companies that would be affected or had some responsibility over actions
involved in the move of the division accounting from the subsidiary to the parent. a The breakdown
in communications are as follows:
The subsidiary’s Oracle upgrade timing was not properly communicated to the finance team in the
parent company responsible for the subsidiary.
Since the parent’s finance team did not have full knowledge of the extent of the Oracle upgrade
and how that would affect transaction processing, they made the decision to move the subsidiary’s
division accounting to their version of Oracle in the same month of the upgrade. This move meant
verifying all account balances that needed to transfer and putting in manual journal entries. a
The parent company finance team informed the management of the subsidiary’s accounting team
of the division accounting move the month of the change, but the rest of the accounting team did
not find out until month end close.
The accounting team, which was already pressed for time with a short window for closing the
books during a normal close and a shortage of personnel, did not have the ability to evaluate any of
the accounts that would need to be moved, nor prepare journal entries until after their normal
month end activities had concluded.
This delay contributed to both the parent company and the subsidiary company not being able to
close their books for the month in the required 4-day window and delayed financial reporting.
The subsidiary’s IT group did not inform their accounting team what time the transaction cut-off
would be until 2 hours before cut-off time.
Month end close usually meant log hours for the accounting team over a 4-day period without any
added changes. a With the cut-off not being known, the accounting team had no idea when they
needed to have all their entries posted until two hours before the deadline.
Since the subsidiary’s Oracle was cut off, a final manual pull into the parent company’s Oracle was
made for that month. All subsequent entries needed to be done on the parent company’s Oracle
until the subsidiary was back online on Monday.
Transactions entered in the parent company would not show up in the subsidiary’s Oracle, so any
journal entries made on the parent company after the cut-off on Friday that should have been
made on the sub’s Oracle had to be made again on the subsidiary’s Oracle beginning Monday. a This
caused the month end close to be delayed by two days as all changes needed to be evaluated after
being moved and no more “pulls” for the month would be completed. Any corrections would need
to be done on both sets of Oracle.
If the parent company had been properly informed of the extent of the upgrade to the accounting
software, they may have made the decision to delay the division accounting move until the next
month to alleviate any conflicts arising from making two major changes at one time. a Also, if the
accounting team had known about the division move earlier in the month, they could have begun
the account reconciliation process prior to month end close. a This may not have completely
prevented delays in closing, but it would have made for better time budgeting. a Finally, if the IT
department had known that the accounting move was being done at the same time as the upgrade
and they had informed the accounting team of the Friday cut-off time, the two departments could
have decided to make the cut off at a time that would be more beneficial to month end close
activities. a Also, the accounting team could have had the parent company make appropriate manual
pulls to move transactions to their version of Oracle at key times before the cut-off. a This would
have prevented the accounting team from having to duplicate their work and delay closing times.
a Reference
Buchman, E. (2022). $70 Million Verdict Against Texas Company In Employment Discrimination
Case, Retrieved 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericbachman/2022/03/21/70-million-verdict-
against-texas-company-in-employment-discrimination-case/?sh=8b4b7182ea84
