While a recent headline-grabbing survey claimed that women have less financial literacy than men, the reality is understanding finances can be a daunting aspect – regardless of gender.
But why is this? We asked Charlie Dalton from Zest Training a quick Q&A ahead of his workshop on Finance For Non-Financials this month, to understand where business people go wrong with finance speak.
Why is it a topic that people in business, regardless of their stage of career or business size, should familiarise themselves with and be comfortable with?
Finance is one if the main inputs into organisations. It is also used, at least partially to measure the success of a business. We should understand it in a similar way to the way we understand people and operating processes
Why can financial literacy be a daunting topic for many people working in business?
Finance has its own language and many people don’t know the basics. It’s just the same as any other language. If we don’t understand the language, we feel excluded and even alienated. It then becomes a vicious circle.
For example, I have worked with a CEO here in Tauranga on their financial literacy on a one on one basis. They did not want to attend a public course as they were relatively high profile in the local business community and didn’t want to be seen to be on an introductory course to finance. He admitted quietly to me that he had been to numerous board meetings where some finance terms had been discussed that he just didn’t understand such as the ‘amortisation of goodwill’.
What is the top area that people struggle with when it comes to financial literacy?
People tend to dislike budgeting. Once people understand the purposes of budgets as well as the language that is being used then budgets become much more relevant (and even interesting!)
Who would benefit from attending this course? What are some of the key takeaways they will get from attending this course?
This course is valuable for non-financial team leaders, supervisors, team members, project managers, small business owners, department heads and others who wish to develop an understanding of finance and financial language.
The aim of this course is make financial management accessible and useful, and to demystify accounting and finance so that attendees can understand basic business accounts.
People that attend the course have said:
“[It helped me with] understanding the terms from an accountants point of view – as I have to speak to accountants to explain my business, and we often have different ways of describing the same thing.”
“[I now have] a much clearer understanding of finance/accounting jargon. Charlie did very well to break it all down into simple terms.”
“I valued the clear definitions of components of P&L vs balance sheet.”
