The petroleum company credit department is a critically important area that can be tough to staff correctly. This department is a high customer touch area and affects desired company growth while also performing risk management. To make things even more interesting, problems that originate in other departments often show up in the credit department’s Accounts Receivable aging, requiring significant problem-solving among staff.
Best Fit for the Job
What makes a good hire for the credit department? A good hire is a person who is a mix of bulldog, sympathetic listener, solid communicator, negotiator, detective, people-person, analyst and researcher, willing to work for a mid-level wage. Disorganized people pleasers need not apply. Sound like a tall order? Yes, it is!
Recruit or Hire Internally?
Recruiting can admittedly be a challenge, but great success happens when you get the right person in the seat and set them up with a gameplan of solid policy, systems and processes. While hiring, keep your eye out for junior bankers or applicants that strongly exhibit the personality types deemed most important for your particular department needs. An old saying is to “hire for aptitude and attitude and train for specific skill,” which is definitely applicable when hiring credit staff in today’s tight labor market.
Successful staffing can also come from promoting from within, especially current employees that already knows the customer base and the company’s basic appetite for risk and growth. An employee who has already spent two years in customer service should have a shorter learning curve to success in the credit department.
How to Keep that Great Hire
To help with retention, credit departments that have regular, structured meetings with the CFO, sales and other related staff experience higher levels of ongoing success. Transparency on what’s happening with credit and collections, including a “no surprises” common goal, is helpful in keeping everyone on the same level of understanding. New hires can experience much greater success if they are given several weeks of carefully focused training in addition to being assigned a mentor from their peer group in the company.
How to Measure Success
Performance goals and metrics should include measurables totally within the control of the department. Simply measuring the credit department by the % current on the accounts receivable aging doesn’t work very well if the credit employees are not in control of credit approvals. A more meaningful measurement would be the metric of new applications processed, number of collection calls per week, or other customer touches which should show an impact on the aging.
Proper hiring and training of the credit department is the first important step to keeping staff engaged, energized and successfully attaining their stated department goals!
