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The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2028, “44% of worker skills will be destroyed.” The financial sector is no exception. Accounting was once the starting point for a career in corporate finance, but between 2019 and 2022, more than 300,000 accountants and auditors quit their jobs. And while having strong technical skills once meant knowing how to work with Excel, that’s no longer the case in the financial industry. Kate Bueker, MBA ’98, HubSpot’s chief financial officer, said:
“Finance teams need more sophisticated data and analytics,” Buker said at the 2023 MIT Sloan CFO Summit last November. “I recently had a colleague of his, another of his CFOs, speak to his team. All of his team has received his Python and SQL training. They are all more technical. It’s starting to happen.”
Mr. Buecker was one of several financial experts who participated in a panel discussion about how the types of talent and capabilities needed in the financial function are changing. Here are some tips for leaders on which in-demand skills to hire and how to train and retain them.
Value traditional and modern skills
As the role of finance becomes more strategic and technical, a key skill for the future of finance is the ability to interpret how finance impacts the business and vice versa.
“[CFOs] I have a deep understanding of finance and how business and what happens in a business is reflected in financial results,” said Buecker. “There are many people who don’t. We can play a role in helping people make smarter choices.”
Managers can help employees improve their interpreting skills by practicing presentations. By asking employees questions and providing feedback during these sessions, managers can help ensure their employees’ stories are clear and effective before being presented to the audience.
Andrea Spinelli, managing director of consulting firm Protiviti, said that despite the decline in the number of people choosing accounting as a career, companies still need to hire people with core accounting skills. said.
“People need to know what assets and liabilities, debits and credits are, but what they do with it and how they handle it will change,” Spinelli said. . “The look will change and people will have to adapt to it.”
Promote a shift in thinking from audit-centric to strategy-based
Another necessary evolution in the role of finance is for people to see themselves as enablers rather than just executors, said Kim Dodge, chief financial officer at Phoenix3 Holdings.
For example, while accuracy and rigor are generally considered qualities of a good accountant, you might think, “Oh, this person spent an extra $3 on lunch, so I shouldn’t approve the entire expense report.” How many people are there? Dodge said. ”
Dodge removes friction from the process by getting his team to think of themselves as the top enablers of the business while other teams work on things like selling to customers, developing code, and handling HR responsibilities. He said he is thinking of removing it.
“Sometimes there are people who don’t understand; [all] Right; it might not be for them,” Dodge said. “But the very idea that accountants have to be rigid and inflexible to be good partners is not good for the growth of accountants.”
Ravi Ragnauth, partner and chief financial officer at Berkshire Residential Investments, said this also means training the rest of the organization to not view accountants as an impediment to business operations.
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Ideally, when a company seeks to make a decision, it should rely on the CFO and finance team as advisors who understand the complexity, risks, and potential benefits of that decision. Doing so not only builds trust throughout the organization, but also changes the audit-focused mindset that many accountants have.
“Sitting down at a table and continuing to discuss business problems trains your mind in a slightly different way. [from] From ‘closing the books’ to ‘how do we get the data to actually make decisions about the business,'” Ragnaut said.
Align talent retention efforts with employee talents and goals
No matter how much effort organizations put into hiring and upskilling finance professionals, the reality is that they can’t keep them all employed. That’s why it’s important to identify, motivate and invest in your best talent so they want to stay, Buker said.
When it comes to younger employees, Dodge said she tries to remind herself that this generation is looking for meaning and connection in their work. Even if it’s a mundane task, finding a way to demonstrate the value it creates is an important way to contextualize someone’s impact on your organization.
For Ragnauts, middle management is a good place to start.
“If you look at most financial organizations, the middle management level is really the key to growth,” Ragnaut said. “This equates to about 30% to 40% of our success in our financial organization.” So it’s important to grow and improve at that level, he added.
Spinelli said it’s important to recognize that not everyone wants to upskill or move to the next level of an organization, and that’s okay.
“You definitely need the right mix. People need to feel that there may be another path for them, that there are different times and different places in the organization for everyone,” Spinelli said. said.
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