Recently, I spoke on the phone with Jonathan Schiff, president of Schiff Consulting Group, about talent development within finance organizations. Schiff points out that “finance staff are being asked to do many more things with fewer people because of the headcount reductions that took place during the recession. At the same time, more key people in senior level positions are choosing to leave. They’re not going to another company – they’re really looking to retire early in their late-fifties or early-sixties.” The stresses of the job have become untenable for many.
These developments are causing some pipeline pressure within finance organizations. However, treating your finance talent as an economic asset can help your finance organization gain a competitive edge. At a time when top performers are aggressively (and selectively) managing talent and arming their people with skills, organizations no longer have a choice—those unable to leverage their economic assets better than competitors will not survive these turbulent economic times.
For example, publically held companies, and even firms that raise capital mainly from banks, are shouldering more risk than before when they fail to invest appropriately in finance talent. Already, says Schiff, there are companies that are missing deadlines for filing reports with regulators, and others are finding that the reports they do file on time are being questioned. “These are real exposures for top management. Top management is therefore turning to finance and saying, ‘do what you need to do because it’s my butt on the line.’”
So how should a finance organization start to get its act together?
Schiff suggests that, “the first step is to really take a good, hard look at your staff and the inventory of skills they bring to the table. For example, does this person have a level of understanding where he/she can work alone on that task without supervision? Can they oversee others with a certain skill set? Once you understand what your inventory is, then you can align that with what your current needs are. That will give insight into what actions you might want to take next.”