Grant Thornton LLP, one of the six global accounting organizations, released a new report titled The Evolving Accounting Talent profile: CFO strategies for attracting, training and retaining experienced accounting and finance professionals.
While you might expect that a dynamic regulatory framework and international standards might present the biggest challenge for today’s CFOs, soft-skills deficiency was identified as a more pressing issue.The study involved surveying more than 500 finance executives and holding one-on-one discussions with 32 CFOs representing a range of industries and company sizes. It’s also important to note that the study highlights “seasoned professionals” – those with at least a BS degree and 10 years of experience.
Challenges in Recruiting Qualified Talent
Talent recruitment in any domain is a challenge. Here is how the CFOs saw the difficulties that they face in recruiting experienced accounting talent:
It should be noted that the study does identify a difference in responses between public and private firms. The private firms rated workload/lifestyle at their foremost concern.
The Soft Skills
It’s not surprising that dynamic workplace needs are driving the demand for these skills. Open-ended responses uncovered the following needs:
Some interesting quotes from study participants:
“Our people can’t just focus on accounting principles. They need to broaden their experience and background knowledge to understand the business application of these principles. Many times, you need critical thinking and business judgment in order to translate data and effectively communicate it.” CFO, public media company, $5B revenues
“People in marketing and production are more persuasive than those in accounting – they manage more staff and deal with management more frequently. With less exposure, you don’t have the same opportunity to develop communication skills, and if you aren’t persuasive, you can’t convince management to take up your recommendations based on your review of financials.” CFO, public commercial service company, $100M-$500M revenues
“It is easy to find someone who can do something that you have asked him or her to do. But it is difficult to find someone with a long-term vision – someone with an awareness of the big picture who sees the issues strategically.” CFO, public industrials company, $5B+ revenues
How to Address Training
The economy continues to challenge training budgets at firms as they continue to slash or eliminate them entirely. With reduced staff and increased workloads, the Grant Thorton study highlights the difficulty CFOs face in creating training opportunities for their staff across all areas of development. Once again, soft skills present the biggest challenge.
One-on-one interactions and mentoring (as opposed to classroom training) were often identified as efforts undertaken by the CFOs to bridge the soft-skills gap. In addition, external programs such as Censeo Corporation’s TalentSIM leadership development tool are frequently utilized as a cost-effective alternative to more costly assessment centers.
Turnover?
Most will agree that as the economy improves, voluntary turnover will increase. Some surveys indicate as many as 23% of accounting professionals plan to look for new opportunities…CFOs better have good retention strategies in place. While the survey cited training and development as the third-most important turnover driver (poor work/life balance and limited potential for advancement were number one and two) , CFOs recommend the need to engage employees in individual discussions and to create development plans based on career aspirations.
“One-on-one meetings have been the most successful method to close skill gaps – these meetings allow us to explore an employee’s needs and gain a clear vision of his or her workplace issues. With this information, we can formulate a development plan and implement it successfully.” – CFO, private technology services company, $100M revenues
Resources
- Business Finance, “The Leadership Skill Continuum,” Jeffrey C. Thomson, November 30, 2009:
- Access the complete report by Grant Thornton for free here.
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