Is Finance Winning Or Losing On The Talent Agenda?

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The world is changing fast, so is the finance function, and so must the people that work in it. However, are we changing fast enough for what our business needs or are we struggling to catch up? According to The Hackett Group’s Key Issues study for 2021, the CFO’s 6th highest priority is to align talents and skills with changing business needs.

Right now, we are failing to meet the expectations, to put it mildly. Hence, it begs the question if we are winning or losing the war for talent and if we are upskilling or reskilling our staff fast enough? 

In this week’s article, we will dig further into what are the needs and what finance leaders can do to address them. Overall, there are two highly expressed needs. 

1. Become a strategic business partner
2. Improve modeling and analytics capabilities as well as increasing finance agility 

One requires increased people skills and the other increased digital skills. The increased need for digital skills is underlined by the enterprise-wide objectives imposed on Finance and the strategic business partner is stated by the CFO herself ranking it as the most important issue for 2021. The goal is clear but what is the path leading to delivering on the important talent agenda? 

Multiple talent channels are needed 

It is clear that no one initiative can deliver the needed talent pipeline for achieving the objectives of the CFO. Finance must work on multiple fronts to succeed and open at least three channels to be successful. 

1. Recruit externally in the form of different capabilities and from other functions
2. Re-skill people already working in the function for instance from accounting to data science
3. Up-skill people already working in the function to increase the impact they have in their role 

External recruitment 

To recruit externally we must make the finance function more attractive to outside talent and new generations coming into the work. I posted the below infographic last week to help you shape up your value proposition for attracting talent into Finance.

This should work for attracting talents to work on both priorities! 

Re-skilling staff 

This is probably the most challenging initiative since it involves moving staff from one functional area to another which will carry more demand in the future. Some of the moves that could be considered would include. 

• From accounting to FP&A: In simple terms it requires moving from being a producer of the numbers to a user. Practically speaking accountants could start in the data and reporting space and move into analytics which they should be well suited for. Once proven their ability they could qualify for upskilling activities (see below).
• From accounting to technical accounting: This involves a deeper specialization from recording transactions to evaluating transactions and designing the overall accounting setup. For many accountants, this would offer them the opportunity to stay in a familiar behind-the-screen research type of role. The challenge is that there are not many of these roles available.
• From accounting to data science: This would offer another deep specialization opportunity without the need for a lot of relationship-building. However, in large parts would also require a completely new skill set that is not easily taught hence the re-skilling process would only happen slowly over a few years.

Likely there are other combinations and they do not necessarily all involve accountants moving roles but could be FP&A and others that move into different areas. 

Up-skilling staff 

Many companies would claim they have followed this path for years, however, have few results to show for it. This is mostly due to a less effective approach to learning. We have probably all been to the training at a nice location (pre-COVID) with some enjoyable days away from the office attending a training. The problem with those one-and-done pieces of training is that they most often fail to create an impact. Few people change their ways of working. 

Instead, companies should take a more long-term view on developing their people and start to develop academies that include distinct learning journeys. Here the staff will be able to see different paths they can take to for instance becoming a better business partner, shoring up their technical skills within modeling, analytics, and reporting, or increasing their digital savviness. This would figure to be a much better approach and one that large successful companies have tried and tested with great results. 

The war is for you to win! 

The war for talent is being fought as we speak but there are only a few front-runners so far. This means you have a golden opportunity to take a proactive approach and increase your chances of winning the war. A simple approach is to conduct a gap analysis between your current as-is state and your desired future state. 

• What is the current competency level of your staff as it relates to the expressed needs?
• What is the gap to the future state?
• What does your plan look like for closing the gap?
• How will you work actively on building each of the three talent channels? 

Answer these questions and you are already halfway with aligning your talent pool with the changing business needs. It is not that complicated although it will require significant efforts from your leadership team, human resources, and learning development. Build a strong coalition between the three perhaps also involving IT for digital capabilities and you can build a great finance academy! 

What are you currently doing to win the war for talent and align your talent pool to current business needs? How large is the current competency gap that your face in your organization? Who will be helping you to close the gap? It is critical that you can answer these questions to ensure that your finance function remains relevant in the eyes of your business stakeholders. Better to get started today, right?

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You can read previous articles in my CFO series below.

The Top 10 Priorities For CFOs In 2021

How FP&A Becomes A Strategic Partner To The Business

Eight Ways For Finance To Go Further On Cost Efficiencies

Finance Professionals Are The Masters Of Analytics, Or Are We?

Re-Imagining Finance In The Face Of The Pandemic

Agility And Sustainability And The 8 Types Of CFOs

CEO AND CFO - The Most Dynamic Duo In Business

The CFO Is The Voice Of Reason In Business

If you want to become a better business partner you should consider taking our online course "Business Partnering Explained - Value Creation Unlocked" to get a better handle on the role. It's accredited for 5.5 CPD hours.

You can read a lot more articles about FP&A, Business Partnering, and Finance Transformation below. It all start's with “Introducing The Finance Transformation Nine Box” where you set the ambition for your transformation. You should join the Finance Business Partner Forum which is part of the Business Partnering Institute's online community where we will continue to discuss this topic and you can click here to follow me on Twitter.

All Successful Business Partners Are "Leaders" (the last article in the series about our new capability model)

Should We Keep Talking About Business Partnering? (part of a 17-article series where we deep-dive on the WHY, WHAT, and HOW of business partnering by putting it on a formula)

Your Journey To Successful Business Partnering Explained

How To Create Value Through Business Partnering

Everyone Can Adopt A Business Partnering Mindset (part of a six-article series about FP&A Business Partnering)

From Business Partner To Working Within The Business (part of an article series where I interview finance professionals about their careers in FP&A and Business Partnering)

Is Your Product Optimized For Value Creation? (part of a toolbox series where we look at what tools FP&A professionals should leverage to drive value creation)

How Business Partners Turn Analysis To Insight (part of case study series where I interview business partners about how they drive value creation using real cases)

The Future Of FP&A: Two Ways To Take The Reins

What Is The Accounting Profession Paradox?

What Defines A Finance Master?

The New Career Path For Finance Professionals

How Finance People Can Be More Successful

The CFOs Roadmap To Transforming Finance

How To Become A Finance Business Partner

Financial Analyst vs. Finance Business Partner

Finance Business Partner Is A Bullshit Job

How Business Partners Keep A Plan On Track

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the co-founder, COO (Chief Operating Officer), and CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) at the Business Partnering Institute and owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with more than 9,000 members. I have ten years of experience as a business partner at the global transport and logistics company Maersk. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner” and a long-time Finance Blogger on LinkedIn with 55.000+ followers.