Things are going change once the cream of Generation Y, (the ‘Millennials’), who were born between 1981–2005, have risen through the ranks of Finance and step into the CFO role. 
Generation X, the group born between 1961–1980 that are currently filling many CFO positions before ascending to become CEOs are said to be sceptical, pragmatic and continually looking to develop an ever widening skill set that will have seen many make significant contributions to their businesses well outside their finance role. But Generation Y can be expected to raise the bar further, demanding the utmost automation of routine finance processes and enterprise wide self-service reporting and analysis so they can use their innovative thinking to engage in meaningful work, energetically multi-tasking to solve problems in the business wherever they happen to be.
The 50 and 60-year-old post war Baby Boomers that I fall into, that are pushing out their retirement dates to give their pension funds time to grow to a level that will sustain them through their sunset and twilight years, better make sure they continue to add value. Although with the demand for good finance skills continuing to outstrip supply even with the current unemployment rate, they are unlikely to be pushed out the door any time soon.
In many countries labour laws are allowing people to extend their retirement date indefinitely and as involuntary redundancy would be a very expensive option for companies wanting to shed these veteran workers, the new Finance leaders will have to manage an increasingly diverse range of age groups and expectations. These labor trends are already discernible. For instance, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the number of younger workers below 25 has dropped almost 7% since 2000, and the number of workers 45 or older has increased 28%. And since the recession in 2007, the age group that continues to grow rapidly is the over-55 crowd.
The aging of the skilled workforce and the shrinking of the younger workforce to take their place means that Finance leaders need to become better at managing and developing the talents and specialist knowledge across their often disparate teams to ensure that they don’t suffer skill scarcity in critically important areas, such as treasury, tax and compliance. These are traditionally the specialist areas that those who failed to achieve – or chose not to compete for – the CFO role come to occupy and many of those currently in these senior roles are approaching retirement age.
This means that newly promoted CFOs from the ranks of Generation X and Generation Y are going to have to adopt a savvy approach when developing their teams; providing younger talent with opportunities to quickly develop specialist skills so they stay engaged and motivated; giving their Gen X and Gen Y peers projects and rotational assignments where they will feel valued – and continually seeking out ways to foster interaction between the various generations so that knowledge transfer can happen and experience is blended with enthusiasm to address issues and problems within finance and across the wider business.
Certainly, one of the most rewarding experiences in my career was during my early 30s’ when I was responsible for a team of young MBA’s that our CEO would use to sort a range of commercial issues from improving collections to bringing greater uniformity to pricing. It taught me a lot about the business –and about dealing with senior managers who often attributed their country’s poor performance to circumstances beyond their control. Unless CFOs step up to this challenge and can show staff internal opportunities to develop such as I enjoyed, the most talented of all ages will take advantage of the improving economy to advance their careers elsewhere. Now you don’t want that do you?