Before he dropped out of his economics degree at the University of Johannesburg to become a Image may be NSFW.
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professional road cyclist, this year’s Tour de France winner, Chris Froome, was on a path that he says would have probably led him into a career in accounting and finance, just like his older brothers – one is the CFO of gold mine in Kenya and the other works for the Financial Services Authority in London. Not everyone who rejects a career in finance is driven by ambition for bigger goals. Many just don’t find it an attractive option and the findings of Deloitte’s recently published 2013 Global Finance Talent Survey suggests that finance has an image problem that leads many talented youngsters to reject the profession seeing finance as little more than scorekeepers rather than the business partners and strategists they are today. What’s more, many respondents said that often the talent they have in their teams is often lured away into other managerial or non-finance positions. These two issues mean that many finance leaders are having big problems in finding and retaining qualified people in critical areas.
Deloitte say that although the finance function has changed dramatically in a short time, the public perceptions may have not yet caught up with those changes so many potential recruits may be making career choices based on outdated views of the opportunities afforded by a finance career. To address this, professional bodies such as the CPA, CIMA and CGMA should consider pursuing a targeted, organized brand-building strategy designed to get the word out about the shift from bean-counter to strategist and business partner that has happened in finance. It’s perhaps not surprising that it’s these ‘new world’ positions that respondents report as being the hardest to fill. For example, finance leaders report that it is easy to find talent in areas such as procurement, treasury, and accounting, but 38% of those participating in the survey say that financial planning and analysis skills are very difficult to recruit for, and many of those positions remain unfilled. These roles require broad skill sets, including the ability to partner with the business – an area that remains a weak point in terms of developing talent
Comparing findings over recent years, Deloitte points to increasing pessimism with a third of finance executives thinking they will be unable to find adequate talent to fill their company’s needs in the next three years. However the corporate world cannot just sit idly by waiting for the professional bodies to reposition finance and accounting as an exciting career choice. Deloitte suggest that CFOs and finance leaders themselves should be doing more to provide the experiences their people need most, such as communicating with senior executives and board members; getting hands-on experience working in business units and participating in strategic planning and special projects. However the findings from the report suggest such initiatives are just not happening as frequently as they need to.
So the report doesn’t make for easy reading for finance leaders or the professional bodies around the world. The gap between the talent that corporate finance needs and what is available is widening and unless everyone takes up the challenge, it’s only going to get worse. This is not an option. It has taken finance leaders years of hard work to win a place at the table with their peers in the business and unless they can recruit people with the talent needed to deliver deeper financial insights and contribute to smarter decision-making, they may out-stay their welcome.
Read the full report here.
