Good morning. Retaining and recruiting talent remains top of mind for CFOs, especially as AI is set to redefine roles in the finance profession.
The latest evidence comes in the form of Deloitte's Q3 2024 CFO Signals report, which saw 40% of finance chiefs name hiring and retention as a top concern, and also name it as one of the top five internal risks they face this quarter, according to the firm. The findings are based on a survey of 200 CFOs across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico at companies earning more than $1 billion in annual revenue.
I talked about this topic with Steve Zabel, the CFO of insurance benefits provider, Unum Group, a Fortune 500 company, which also earned a spot on the Fortune America’s Most Innovative Companies list in 2023. It's crucial to provide employees in finance and accounting roles “an experience that feels modern," Zabel told me last week during Workday Rising in Las Vegas. (Workday is a CFO Daily sponsor).
A lot of young professionals are used to being on their smartphones interacting with really good technology, Zabel explained. “And then you kind of take them out of college and put them in an organization, and it's almost like a step back for them if you don't have modern technology platforms,” he said. Having tech tools to streamline finance processes has helped in attracting talent, Zabel said. “If you have a CPA, they don't want to be manipulating Excel spreadsheets,” he added.
Unum implemented Workday's unified finance and HR platform in 2014, Zabel said. It eliminated manual work like rolling forward the general ledger from year to year, which used to take someone three days to do, Zabel explained. Taking away the transactional work “lets my finance professionals work on decision-making,” he said.
AI is shifting the role of finance
In hiring and retaining talent, another concern is how AI will redefine roles. The transformation will span from the CFO to entry-level staff, emphasizing technology proficiency, data analytics, critical thinking, and cross-functional collaboration, according to a recent report by the Institute of Management Accountants.
When I asked Zane Rowe, CFO of Workday, about this dynamic, he told me: “We’re creating talent for the future, not just for the present.”
For its finance organization, the Fortune 500 company is trying to appeal to people who not only have a finance background but also an aptitude for technology, Rowe said. With existing talent, the company has programs to expose them to different areas of the business, he said.
One example is “gigs,” short-term assignments for employees that Workday rolled out in 2019. If finance team members wanted to learn more about tech, for example, they could request a project that is typically two to three months, but it’s part of their workday hours.
There’s also a Finance AI Innovation Center within Workday geared toward helping finance and accounting teams think about how to employ AI in creative ways, Rowe said. As roles continue to evolve, it's imperative to make sure there’s upskilling of existing talent and also to bring in employees with fresh ideas and perspectives, he said.
“Because as a finance team, a number of years from now, things will be different,” Rowe said.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
The following sections of CFO Daily were curated by Greg McKenna
