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This article was first published in the June 2016 international edition of Accounting and Business magazine.

Generation Y is entering the workplace. At the same time we are seeing the end of the concept of employment for life, the rise of shared services and outsourcing that split career paths in two, offshoring and nearshoring of finance operations, and the arrival of new technologies that automate repetitive finance tasks.

Pick up any treatise on global workforce planning and the predictions – while not dire – certainly augur an about-turn from the traditional paradigm of ‘pay your dues, be loyal to your employer, go to an office daily’, which has marked the last 50 years of life in the finance profession. Today, all bets are off, with new forces potentially – and indelibly – changing the finance talent equation.

Will finance remain an incredibly satisfying career for most? Or will it become a qualification that can be easily translated into other career pursuits? Will it keep professionals challenged through several stages of development, or will the function become a revolving door after a few short years? Will there be free and fluid career paths for all, no matter the initial role, or will the top jobs only go to those in the retained team?

These are just some of the questions posed by ACCA’s intensive two-year examination of finance talent management practices. Over the next two years, 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. 

The first study, Talent Equation: First Insights, is based on the views of nearly 600 finance professionals from around the world who work in the retained team, the centre of excellence or a finance shared-services operation. The results suggest the finance profession is at a critical juncture, requiring a rethink of traditional career pathways, and employee attraction and engagement.

Underpinning the survey results are five trends that could inextricably change the future of finance talent.

Millennials and Gen X. ‘They don’t want what we want!’ An increasing number of leaders are not-so-privately grumbling about the challenges of managing the latest generation of finance professionals. Although every generation seemingly has different goals and needs from its predecessor, this time the divide appears much greater. Technology, global mobility, the demise of the concept of jobs for life, the quest for work-life balance and a fearless approach to changing jobs rule the career decisions of the youngest in the profession.  

Finance accreditation. The good news is that finance education is now widely recognised as a great basis for a multitude of business roles. Where else can you learn about the facts and figures that drive business operations, but also get an overview of the business in terms of what drives growth and represents risk? To illustrate, just over half of Fortune 100 public CEOs, according to Forbes, have a degree in business, economics or accounting, and 32% of these leaders previously held the role of CFO. But is there a bad news story here? Will the best and brightest armed with a finance qualification eschew debits and credits for careers elsewhere in the business; or even embark on an entrepreneurial path? In short, will the rest of the enterprise drain off the cream of the finance professionals? What will entice them to stay long enough to build satisfying careers in finance?

Globalisation. Much of the finance team is no longer located down the hall; the staff closing the past month’s books are likely to be located in Bangalore, Buenos Aires or Budapest. Long gone are the days when the enterprise’s entire finance staff was ensconced in headquarters, in proximity to the powers that be. Now that talent is located globally, managing attraction and development has become more of a challenge. Training and development must now take into account cultural nuances and consistent global career pathways. Fostering mobility is now a necessity in order to build a talent pipeline that produces tomorrow’s crop of senior finance leaders, most likely from locations far from the home office.

Career-path bifurcation. Since 2004, enterprises of all sizes across almost all industries have clung on to the concept of splitting the finance function into two or three segments – a finance back-office or shared service for repetitive, rules-based, time-bound work; and retained and centre of excellence teams for higher-value business partnering or specialised finance tasks such as treasury, tax and corporate development. While the trend has been good for standardisation, consolidation and cost reduction, it has had perhaps an adverse effect upon finance career paths. Increasingly, the major intake of finance graduates has been into shared services roles, the so-called bottom of the pyramid, where young professionals pick up the necessary foundation skills in payables, receivables, general ledger and other core finance tasks. If there is no comprehensive, institutionalised career path across finance that allows professionals to pick up experience across teams, finance delivery roles will increasingly be viewed as service functions, whilst the ‘real finance’ tasks are seen as the responsibility of the retained teams and centre of excellence. 

Are the robots coming? Finance is now seeing the implementation of robotics process automation (RPA) – the application of flexible tools to automate manual activity within finance processes such as payables. Applicable to rules-driven, data-intensive processes that are repetitive in nature, so-called robots can traverse multiple systems and include multiple decision points or calculations. And their economics are compelling: they often represent as much as a ninth of the cost of an offshore entry-level finance profession. They can not only work 24/7, but they don’t call in sick or take holidays. The implementation of robots begs the question: will many rules-based finance tasks be delivered by RPA, eliminating the entry-level finance roles that comprise the base of the finance career pyramid? How will finance career preparation be affected if the mastery of core finance tasks is given over to software automation?

Watch out for more insights into the talent equation in future editions of AB, plus the findings of a survey of the next generation of finance professionals. 

Deborah Kops, writer, consultant and founder of sourcingchange.com