Idea Transcript
Talent Equation: First Insights
About ACCA
ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) is the global body for professional accountants. It offers business-relevant, first-choice qualifications to people of application, ability and ambition around the world who seek a rewarding career in accountancy, finance and management. ACCA supports its 178,000 members and 455,000 students in 181 countries, helping them to develop successful careers in accounting and business, with the skills required by employers. ACCA works through a network of 95 offices and centres and more than 7,110 Approved Employers worldwide, who provide high standards of employee learning and development. Through its public interest remit, ACCA promotes appropriate regulation of accounting and conducts relevant research to ensure accountancy continues to grow in reputation and influence. Founded in 1904, ACCA has consistently held unique core values: opportunity, diversity, innovation, integrity and accountability. It believes that accountants bring value to economies in all stages of development and seek to develop capacity in the profession and encourage the adoption of global standards. ACCA’s core values are aligned to the needs of employers in all sectors and it ensures that through its range of qualifications, it prepares accountants for business. ACCA seeks to open up the profession to people of all backgrounds and remove artificial barriers, innovating its qualifications and delivery to meet the diverse needs of trainee professionals and their employers. More information is available at: www.accaglobal.com
© The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants March 2016
This report launches ACCA’s most comprehensive research programme of finance talent management practices. Over the next 24 months, the programme will assess and address the critical talent challenges that organisations – and their finance leaders – now face in ensuring that they attract, train and retain the next generation of finance professionals. ACCA will be drawing on a wide range of quantitative and qualitative research activities, including global surveys, ‘deep-dive’ enterprise case studies, in-depth career profiling and insightful leadership interviews, to reveal the finance talent situation and identify the most relevant talent management trends and priorities.
Executive summary
The adoption of finance shared services models has led to a two-tier career pathway in the finance function. The survey findings suggest that attracting, developing, engaging and retaining finance professionals is becoming an increasing challenge.
WHAT DO THE INITIAL FINDINGS SUGGEST FOR THE FUTURE OF FINANCE TALENT? The story, as indicated by ACCA’s inaugural survey, suggests that there are major changes in the course of a finance career. The old career pathways may no longer be followed. A career spent in the finance function may no longer be the prime aspiration of newer entrants to the
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attention on the retained team, developing training interventions and formalising career paths that are not pan-finance enterprise, for example, by not including shared services in formal finance functional career pathways or training interventions. Yet there is a catch in this trend. The so-called finance ‘servants’ could very well have a longer-term career advantage over their retained brethren. Shared services staff have the opportunity to pick up skills that have broad enterprise and real leadership value down the line – the ability to work/manage globally, transformation capabilities, communication and change skills, to name just a few. These in-demand skill sets potentially give finance shared services staff a wider range of career options. Because those who enter the finance function through shared services may not clearly see the kind of career path they look for in finance, some may leave finance. This is good news for the wider business, but perhaps less so for ‘finance’.
profession (and those that follow), changing business model and operating footprints may be opening up new ways for the enterprise to tap into ‘finance’ talent. The traditional attraction, development, engagement and retention solutions do not seem to be working as well. With the adoption of finance shared services models, there is apparently a two-tier career pathway in the finance function, where previously there was one. Given organisational constructs – and human nature – one serves (shared services) by delivering in the main rules-based work, while initial insights from the survey data indicate that the retained team is still viewed as doing the ‘real’ finance work. This sets up a what could be termed a ‘servantmaster’ construct that would make it convenient for organisational development and training leaders to focus most of their
Enter Generation Y. Much has been written about the youngest generation in the workforce today. This survey suggests that their behaviour is markedly different from that of previous generations of finance professionals. They may be less patient, less loyal, and more likely to make a 180-degree change in a career plan than previous generations. They give themselves ready permission to take career detours. Simply put, qualifying for a finance role may no longer be their only ambition; for some it is the very beginning of a more circuitous career path. These initial findings are entirely consistent with a survey ACCA conducted five years ago with Mercer,1 which indicated that 60% of young professionals were looking for career pathways outside traditional finance roles, with one-third expecting to move role within one year. The survey also suggests attracting, developing, engaging and retaining finance professionals is becoming an increasing challenge. Current management practices just do not seem to be appropriate.
1 ACCA and Mercer (2010), ‘Generation Y: Realising the Potential’, accessed 1 February 2016.
1. Introduction
To initiate the research programme, in late 2015, ACCA conducted a survey of nearly 600 finance professionals. Participants ranged from those working in retained teams, to members of a finance centre of excellence, and to members of shared services centre teams.
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Adoption of transformative finance delivery models such as shared services and outsourcing accelerated by rapid changes in technology. Movement of transactional finance to lower-cost locations. Organisational realignment of finance functions into centres of expertise. An ageing workforce with new entrants having radically different career aspirations. A new point of entry through shared services roles. The rise of the business partner role. The inexorable rise of the digital finance organisation. Together, these trends have indelibly changed the talent equation for the finance profession, yet their implications are little understood and unsubstantiated. ACCA, the global body for professional accountants, has embarked upon one of the largest-ever research programmes of finance talent management practices in light of these trends. The advent of new finance function delivery models, particularly in the form of shared services and outsourcing, is having indelible – yet little understood –implications for finance careers.
What do this and other trends mean for the CFO function – and CFOs themselves – when considering the future of finance talent? Are career paths inexorably changing? Will the profession be able to train and retain the right expertise in the right locations, given the movement to shared service delivery? And will the newest entrants into the profession enthusiastically embrace finance careers? Over the next 24 months, ACCA will assess and address the critical talent challenges that organisations – and their finance leaders – now face in ensuring that they attract, train and retain the next generation of finance professionals. Working with some of the world’s leading businesses, consultants and leaders, ACCA’s aim is to bring rich insights into the practices that enterprises must adopt to secure the future of finance talent. This study will draw on a wide range of quantitative and qualitative research activities, including global surveys, ‘deep-dive’ enterprise case studies, in-depth career profiling and insightful leadership interviews, to reveal the finance talent situation and identify the most relevant talent management trends and priorities.
Talent Equation: First Insights
Our respondents, of whom over 40% work for organizations over $3 billion in revenue, are very familiar with the value that SSO can create.
1. Introduction
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To launch the most comprehensive research ever conducted on the topic, in late 2015, ACCA conducted a survey of finance professionals so as to develop a baseline understanding of the major issues. This summary provides a first insight into the current state of finance talent, and raises fundamental questions that will be further explored during the course of this research programme.
The survey respondents’ finance organisations have actively embraced SSO, with the majority pushing at least 50% of finance processes across the organisation into the model, regardless of scope, i.e. whether serving one country, one region or their company’s entire global finance footprint. The survey indicates that shared services provision no longer focuses primarily on rules-based finance transactions; fully one-third of such facilities carry out middle-office finance processes, while a further one-third say that their SSO models now handle complex finance processes.
Nearly 600 finance professionals across the world participated in the survey, ranging from those working in retained teams, to members of a finance centre of excellence, and to members of shared services centre teams. What is remarkable about the demographics of the respondents is the pervasive nature of shared services models. Participating respondents self-selected, and their models are mature; 55% of the organisations they represent have had shared services and outsourcing (SSO) models in place for six-plus years, while almost one-third have had the model in operation for 10 years or more.
These demographics suggest that finance has crossed the shared services and outsourcing Rubicon. Our respondents, of whom over 40% work for organizations over $3 billion in revenue, are very familiar with the value that SSO can create. With mature delivery models that are moving up the value chain, SSO is now truly institutionalized as a key component of the finance organizational construct. In short, there’s no going back; shared services is here to stay, and the implications on finance talent are substantial.
Figure 1.1: A ge of SSO models at respondents’ organisations 6%
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32% 22%
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