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High Performance Finance The Critical Role of the Finance Workforce

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ContentsIntroduction 4

Building an Effective Finance Workforce: Skills Matter 6

Challenges in building the right skills 6

New skills required 7

Limitations of Traditional Finance Workforce Management Practices 9

Learning from Finance Masters 10

Strategies for Improving Workforce Effectiveness 13

Strategy 1: Build a holistic human capital framework 14

Strategy 2: Abandon one-size-fits-all approaches 15

Strategy 3: Assign a finance talent lead 17

Strategy 4: Improve existing workforce management practices 18

Strategy 5: Think fit, not just skills 19

Strategy 6: Tap into learning innovations 20

Strategy 7: Borrow talent in creative ways 21

Next Steps 22

Notes 23

4

In today’s business environment, the finance organization has assumed increasing importance in companies around the globe. In fact, in the most recent Accenture High Performance Finance Studyi, respondents cited finance as the third most important business function, behind customer service and sales.

Finance’s importance should come as no surprise. Companies’ senior leadership teams are increasingly relying on the finance organization to help develop and shape the enterprise’s strategies and to provide guidance on how the company can optimize resources to improve profitability. Senior management also looks to finance for insights into how the enterprise can identify and minimize risks as the business world grows more complex and volatile.

Finance’s success in these endeavors is influenced by many factors. But arguably, the most prominent one today is the effectiveness of the finance workforce. Results indicate, this effectiveness is strongly determined by the alignment of the finance function’s leadership, talent, culture and organizational model. In our survey of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and finance executives around the world, 84 percent of respondents rated finance workforce effectiveness as important or very important to the finance organization’s overall performance. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1: Companies face a significant gap in their finance workforce effectiveness

Among the top organizational capabilities gaps identified by our survey respondents, the gap in finance workforce effectiveness counts among the largest.

Top organizational capabilities gaps

Capability Gaps

Finance Function Effectiveness

Source: Accenture 2011 High Performance Finance Study

Importance Satisfaction

87%

16%

71%

68%67%

71% 70%

67%

16% 17%12% 12%

12%

84% 84% 83% 82%

79%

WorkforceEffectiveness

Driving Enterprise Performance

Risk Management

Finance Function Efficiency

Preparing For Growth

Introduction

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One executive from a major retailer indicated that talent is key and that success depends upon having the best talent – period. And for organizations that can identify and attract the right talent, there is no limit to what they can hope to achieve.

Such comments reinforce the notion that companies are in what many call the Talent Decade.ii Our work with clients across the globe indicates enterprises are becoming much more efficient by improving their business processes and technologies. However, they are still challenged in their efforts to achieve greater improvement in their effectiveness. Given the fact that economists now view people and their performance as the last competitive advantage and critical to the success of the organization, more executives are now willing to embrace a more sophisticated, nuanced, yet undoubtedly more complex talent management model.iii Thus, for most companies, attracting, retaining and developing talent in their most important workforces—finance among them—has become critical to the pursuit of a company’s strategic objectives. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2: People are the key to an effective finance workforce

Many companies have invested heavily in process and technology improvements. But investments in people may prove most critical to improving the finance function’s effectiveness. Talent is not just an enabler – the best processes and technologies are worth nothing without the right talents to use them.

Efficiency Effectiveness

Investments

Investments

Process andTechnology

People

Source: Accenture

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Challenges in building the right skillsChallenges in building the right finance skills can take various forms. In our study, 32 percent of respondents said that a significant proportion of finance skills in their organizations are out of date;

29 percent said that their companies simply lack the skills their finance organization needs. Even more troubling, closing such gaps is not easy. Among the companies we surveyed, slightly more than half have trouble attracting appropriately skilled talent—either because they cannot afford to pay the market rate for such talent

(25 percent) or because people with the requisite skills do not want to work in their industry (23 percent).

A senior finance executive told us that his organization is challenged to find people with the right skills. As he put it, finance employees’ roles increasingly

Building an Effective Finance Workforce: Skills Matter

While finance executives understand the importance of building an effective workforce in their function, our most recent pulse survey suggests this is increasingly taking a sense of urgency. For instance, investing in upgrading the skills of finance professional staff over the next two to three years is the top priority of the finance function. (See Figure 3.)iv

Figure 3: Investing in the finance function

Which of the following are priorities for the finance function over the next two to three years? Multiple responses

Source: Accenture 2013 CFO Survey

Invest in upgrading the skills of finance professional staff

64% said invest in finance skills and/or systems to support planning, budgeting and forecasting

Invest in systems to support planning, budgeting and forecasting

Reduce the amount of time finance staff spend on low-value activities

Upgrade our treasury management capabilities

Develop a truly globally integrated finance function supporting all businesses and geographies

Adopt cloud capabilities

Broaden our shared services footprint

None of the above

Outsource finance activities to enable business strategy and reduce costs

Invest in systems to support transaction processing

Provide increased visibility to revenue and expenses to support business growth and profitability

Reduce the overall cost of finance

Invest in systems to support business analytics

44%

40%

38%

37%

36%

35%

34%

33%

31%

24%

15%

8%

1%

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call for the ability to work with business leaders across the enterprise. This, in turn, requires a multitude of diverse skills. For example, finance employees not only need expertise in their field; they also must often demonstrate a broad understanding of other disciplines including supply chain, IT and sales. Only then can they grasp how those parts of the business work and speak knowledgeably with their non-finance counterparts. In addition, interpersonal and communication skills are essential for successful collaboration with peers throughout the company.v (See Figure 4.)

New skills requiredNew skills requirements parallel changes in the behaviors and responsibilities needed in finance. The global recession saw the finance function’s role expand: finance had to be more than just a steward of the company’s financial well-being; it also had to start protecting the business’s profit against risks and assess new wellsprings of growth for the company. Owing to this expanded role, finance professionals often now balance core business and finance responsibilities to help the business as a whole. This development has put a premium on skills beyond those traditionally valued by finance.

This finding is consistent with insights gained from Accenture’s US Skills Gap Survey.vi That is, to manage the complex jobs making up today’s knowledge-driven, technology-oriented economy, individuals must develop not just one or two key functional skills but a large and increasingly diverse portfolio of skills. (See Figure 5.) In the survey of 1,088 US workers, more than half reported feeling pressure to augment their skills portfolio with additional capabilities. Two-thirds said that they had to learn new skills in the past five years to perform their job. Technology, problem-solving, communication and analytical skills top the list of the most common skills that survey respondents said they had to develop. Likewise, 76 percent of respondents reported that their employer highly values their ability to learn new skills quickly and easily.

Figure 4: Finance employees must diversify their knowledge

To become valuable business partners, finance employees need to do more than deepen their knowledge of their field. They must also gain familiarity with disciplines outside their comfort zone.

Source: Accenture

Foundational finance skills

Interpersonal and soft skills

Cross-business and business acumen skills

Specialized finance skills

A better business partner

Figure 5: Finance professionals must be able to interact with diverse decision makers

Among the skills needed to excel in the finance function, the ability to interact with decision makers—including showing cutting-edge thinking and analyzing business drivers—requires the lion’s share of professionals’ time.

Source: Best Practices in Planning and Performance Management, David A.J. Axson, Wiley 2010

• Partner in defining business strategy and plan

• Guide businesses to current and future goals

• Show cutting-edge thinking and innovate across the organization

• Conduct business driver, value and portfolio analysis

• Optimize capital and focus on growth

• Manage financial and non-financial risks

• Provide deep insights into cost and profitability

• Interpret and monitor business results and KPIs

• Analyze and integrate macro and micro economic factors

• Create complex scenario and analytic modeling

• Conduct planning, resource allocation and forecasting

• Control and perform fiduciary responsibilities

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Data collection 10%

Performing analysis29%

Interacting withdecision makers40%

Strategic initiatives 8%

Personal development and other 13%

Activity

Time allocation

• Increase ability to communicate, negotiate, think critically

• ERP knowledge, such as master data management

Furthermore, 40 percent of the finance executives in our research project said that major changes in the demographics, needs, and skills of the finance workforce are having a major impact on the finance function. Many of the executives we spoke with reported that the globalization of their businesses has created a major talent challenge for their organization. “The financial workplace at our company has become increasingly based on mobility, so some groups in limited markets and with limited resources face fewer advancement opportunities,” noted one interviewee. “Unfortunately, people often do not want to move and take roles outside of their home geographies.”

The CFO of a US-based industrial manufacturer echoed those sentiments. “We’re a global company, with 75 percent of our sales and revenues coming from outside the United States, and our people have to have global experience,” he said. “We have to be able to give people exposure to different parts of the world where the company does business. If you’re not willing to get a passport, it doesn’t mean you’ve ended your career, but your upward career path will be very limited.”

For the CFO of a global retailer in our study, globalization makes it difficult to find employees with the right mix of skills and cultural understanding. This executive noted that some countries are easy to do business with and some present difficult challenges. But overall, getting the appropriate talent to staff this company’s regional finance operations is a big concern. (See Figure 6.)

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Figure 6: Finance skills challenges vary across regions

Finance functions in companies based in North America, Europe, Latin America or Asia face a diverse array of challenges in filling skills needs.

Source: Accenture 2011 High Performance Finance Study

Region North America

Europe Latin America

Asia

Finance skills out of date 33% 28% 40% 30%

Finance organization lacks needed skills 30% 20% 32% 33%

Can’t pay enough for skills 29% 20% 40% 19%

People with needed skills don’t want to work in our industry

22% 20% 40% 23%

Insufficient supply of finance skills 22% 13% 24% 20%

Skills not located in countries where we need them

21% 10% 12% 26%

Don’t know 1% 6% 0% 1%

None of the above 20% 27% 10% 25%

In fact, with the exception of employee satisfaction surveys, every workforce management practice saw greater use in 2011 versus 2008. (See Figure 7.)

Not surprisingly, the two most popular practices are perhaps the most basic and intuitive: offering competitive salaries and benefits, and tying performance rewards to individual success and overall enterprise profitability.i As a recent example, Microsoft realized that it had to change how it compensates its professionals, including those in finance. The reason? The company’s existing compensation was

not in line with the technology industry, according to its Chief Accounting Officer. To correct the situation, the company shifted some long-term incentive compensation to base pay and dedicated a large portion of discretionary compensation to rewarding superior performance.i

Yet despite the increased use of well-known workforce management practices, most finance organizations in our study believe they have gaps in the key finance capabilities needed for an effective finance workforce. We asked participating executives to describe the maturity level of

major finance capabilities using a five-point scale, in which 1 denotes a basic or rudimentary capability and 5 indicates a highly advanced capability. Workforce management counted among the areas with the smallest percentage of 5 ratings (18 percent).

This finding suggests that companies may wish to step up their use of these practices even further, as well as adopt more innovative strategies, if they hope to improve their finance workforce effectiveness. Drawing lessons from finance masters may help.

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To manage their finance workforce more effectively, companies use a wide variety of well-known practices. Accenture’s research shows that over a multi-year period, companies have stepped up their use of these talent management practices.

Figure 7: Use of established workforce management practices is on the rise

From 2008 to 2011, companies have stepped up their use of numerous established practices for managing talent.

Sources: Accenture High Performance Finance Study 2008 and Accenture 2011 High Performance Finance Study

20112008

37%44%

40%49%

37%42%

35%50%

30%54%

51%62%

53%53%

49%60%

37%53%

41%54%

31%53%

23%51%

Percentage using each practice

Global and local communities of practice

Full participation in coaching and mentoring

Real-time critical feedback

Rotations through finance roles

Formal finance competency model

Competitive salaries and benefits

Employee satisfaction surveys

Rewards tied to individual success and enterprise profitability

Encouragement to seek training on new topics and technologies

Encouragement of innovation and idea sharing

Training to keep the workforce current

Well-defined sourcing and selection strategy

Limitations of Traditional Finance Workforce Management Practices

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Learning from Finance Masters

In our study, mastery is largely determined by a series of comprehensive finance performance metrics reported by participating companies and governments. We applied an algorithm to determine mastery using performance in three key areas of finance: core accounting, cost of finance and delivery of value. Enterprises outperforming the overall group

were classified as masters, while those underperforming the overall group were designated as non-masters. With that in mind, we identified a number of interesting changes among masters and non-masters in their use of established workforce management practices. (See Figure 8.)

Finance mastery is an important step in a finance organization’s journey toward high performance. But what does such mastery mean?

Figure 8: Finance non-masters are catching up to masters

Finance masters use established workforce management practices more than non-masters do, but the non-masters are catching up.

Sources: Accenture High Performance Finance Study 2008 and Accenture 2011 High Performance Finance Study

Non-masterMaster

46%34%

54%37%

54%33%

42%32%

60%26%

71%46%

71%48%

58%45%

62%33%

71%37%

42%29%

48%19%

Percentage using each practice 2008 2011

Global and local communities of practice

Full participation in coaching and mentoring

Real-time critical feedback

Rotations through finance roles

Formal finance competency model

Competitive salaries and benefits

Employee satisfaction surveys

Rewards tied to individual success and enterprise profitability

Encouragement to seek training on new topics and technologies

Encouragement of innovation and idea sharing

Training to keep the workforce current

Well-defined sourcing and selection strategy

52%45%

58%41%

48%38%

52%37%

62%50%

75%50%

61%43%

68%51%

59%41%

65%42%

61%47%

62%45%

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Specifically, finance non-masters have made great strides in their use of many established workforce management practices. For example, only 19 percent of non-masters had a well-defined sourcing and selection strategy in 2008, but 45 percent had such a strategy in 2011—a larger gain than that achieved by the masters in our study. We saw similar double-digit improvements in adoption of a formal finance competency model, training to keep the workforce current and the presence of communities of practice. However, while non-masters may be closing the gap, masters still use all of these practices more than non-masters do. Thus non-masters still have some distance to cover to match the leaders in their respective industries.

Given masters’ higher adoption of workforce management practices, it’s not surprising that they are more likely than non-masters to describe the overall skill level of their finance workforce as above most peer organizations or industry leaders (72 percent versus 63 percent). Yet the masters in our study were slightly more likely than non-masters to say that

a significant portion of their finance skills are out of date (35 percent versus 31 percent) and to cite finding and retaining a skilled workforce as one of their greatest challenges. It appears that, for masters, the skills bar is higher than for other companies. Therefore, they have more difficulty locating the people they need to fill critical roles in their finance organization. In other words, masters have a clearer sense of what skills they are missing and are more selective in their talent recruitment.

Last, masters believe that major changes in the demographics and needs of their finance workforce have a relatively small impact on their finance organization. The most likely reason is that masters have better prepared themselves for the future, having anticipated the need to support their company’s globalization and changed their workforce to accommodate this need. As a result, today they are harvesting the fruits of their labor. And they’re confident that they are well positioned to handle the major changes that are so challenging for many other finance organizations.

Filling the Skills Gap

Implementing a Finance Academy at a Major Consumer Packaged Goods Company

A Fortune 100 consumer goods company operating in more than 200 countries faced a major challenge: As its business expanded, the finance function grew in size and across geographies.

The company had been training finance professionals through on-the-job experiences and individual coaching, but there was no consistent training available across the organization. Recognizing the challenge, the CFO sought to reinvent the way the company’s finance talent around the world was trained—with an eye toward improving retention and boosting finance’s impact on business results.

Working with Accenture, the company developed a university model that would deliver deep situational learning to its global finance workforce. A new curriculum roadmap was developed, and the program was organized into 10 “colleges,” each representing

a specific finance function. The university leveraged an e-learning model to reach more than 3,000 geographically dispersed mid-level finance associates. The program also focused on action learning, which helped groups of learners to come together, in person or virtually, to solve real, relevant business challenges. Overall, the curriculum featured more than 130 hours of self-paced learning, prioritized by business imperatives and it is re-evaluated annually by senior finance leadership.

The value of the finance university model soon became apparent. For one thing, it helped far-flung finance team members to share best practices and expert knowledge, build consistent capabilities and form a strong finance community. The model also provided a cost-effective learning method that could be replicated for other functions throughout the company. Finally, it had a beneficial effect on the

company’s cash flow. As much as 60 percent of participants reported some change in cash flow management behavior and reporting accuracy. And 95 percent of learners across the entire curriculum reported being satisfied with their experiences with the university.

In sum, by focusing on a targeted set of skills critical to overall business performance, the university model delivered quantitative and qualitative benefits to the company’s finance organization and the business as a whole.

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These are:

When addressing workforce issues, organizations typically need to employ multiple solutions in parallel. In our research and conversations with executives, we identified seven innovative strategies that, when combined in different configurations, can help organizations gain a competitive edge in the form of greater finance workforce effectiveness.

1. Build a holistic human capital framework

2. Abandon one-size-fits-all approaches

4. Improve existing workforce management practices

5. Think fit, not just skills 6. Tap into learning innovations

7. Borrow talent in creative ways

3. Assign a finance talent lead

Strategies for Improving Workforce Effectiveness

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Strategy 1Build a holistic human capital framework

The road to improving finance workforce effectiveness begins with building a holistic human capital framework. As we saw earlier, using established workforce management practices isn’t enough in a world of heightened volatility, increased regulation and the expanding role of the finance function. Organizations will want to do a better job of identifying, rewarding, developing, organizing, leading and engaging finance professionals. Those that neglect this goal risk losing these professionals or failing to get exceptional performance from them.

Achieving that goal may require a robust human capital framework that considers not only talent but also leadership, organization

and culture. (See Figure 9.) Such a framework enables a company to think holistically about all the dimensions critical to enhancing workforce effectiveness.

A holistic human capital framework helps finance executives spell out how their function’s people will help enable the organization to meet its strategic objectives. It’s easy for executives to say they’ve hired resources to accomplish a specific task. It’s much more difficult to say that they have the right leadership, talent, culture and organization in place to achieve key business goals. This is true at all levels of management and in all industries.

Figure 9: A holistic human capital framework enables workforce effectiveness

A holistic human capital framework enables companies to improve finance workforce effectiveness by leveraging leadership, talent, culture, organization and human capital analytics.

Human Capital Strategy defines the leadership, talent, culture and organization requirements at the enterprise level. • Leadership: Is leadership visible? Are they acting as coaches and mentors?

• Talent: Is the function able to effectively identify, attract, develop and retain employees? Do employees effectively apply their skills, knowledge, and abilities to accomplish the function’s goals?

• Organization: Does the organizational model execute the function’s key objectives?Are career paths visible and is there movement between groups?

• Culture: What are the cultural attributes needed to support high performance?Are employees motivated? Does the workforce adapt?

Workforce Effectiveness is the application of the Human Capital Strategy at the businessfunction workforce level

Human Capital Analytics: Are analytics used to gather insightful data?

Aligning the business strategy, the human capital strategy, and applying these at theworkforce level drives Business Results!

Business Strategy

Workforce Effectiveness

Business Results

Human Capital Strategy

TalentLeadership

OrganizationCulture

Human Capital

Analytics

Source: Accenture







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Strategy 2Abandon one-size-fits-all approaches

Our research shows that many organizations have stopped using one-size-fits-all approaches to marketing and selling to their customers. Instead, they are personalizing the way they market, sell and serve each customer, as well as tailoring products and services for market segments. This approach has fueled some of the greatest success stories of the past 25 years. Amazon is a case in point. The company thrived in the crowded retail market, without the benefit of physical stores, because it emphasized customer relationship management capabilities, such as analyzing buyer behavior to provide personalized product recommendations to customers.vii

Finance and other business functions are now considering how they can adopt similar customized approaches to manage people more effectively. The key is to tailor human resources practices to the needs of individual employees or employee segments—what we call the “workforce of one” approach.iii Companies shifting to this new approach are applying the following practices:

Segment finance employees based on professional needs The professional needs of employees in a finance shared services organization may differ from those in a controller or financial planning and analysis (FP&A) organization. Companies that customize their workforce management practices to fulfill these diverse needs will stand a better chance of attracting, retaining and developing the skills of employees in the different segments.

For instance, in many organizations, controlling and FP&A are feeders into the CFO position. Thus younger employees in these groups might highly value leadership rotational programs or overseas

assignments. By contrast, shared services employees who do primarily transactional work might value stability or a career path that leads to opportunities in controlling or FP&A.

Companies can segment their finance employees in other ways as well. For example, research shows that practices that work well in the United States – such as 360-degree feedback – may not be effective in other countries, like China for example. Consequently, companies may want to tailor their performance appraisal approaches based on geography.

Let finance employees select desired people practicesForward-thinking companies allow employees to customize their work experience based on the employee’s individual needs and a predefined list of acceptable practices. At Accenture, for example, broadly defined assessment criteria—like the extent to which an employee is a people developer, business operator, and value creator—are defined and applied to all, but under each a modular menu of choices based on level and workforce is then provided to supervisors from which they can flexibly select. A supervisor could select from characteristics such as “contributes to knowledge capital,” “provides new solutions or services,” “establishes self as an expert,” or “makes improvements to work products,” for example, when assessing whether a junior consulting employee is an effective value creator. In this way, standard ratings are still collected, but the ratings are based on the unique work the employee performs rather than on ill-suited assessment criteria.iii







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Define finance jobs more broadlyInstead of disaggregating work into relatively narrow, rigidly defined roles, progressive organizations are defining jobs so broadly that individuals or their managers are free to apply their skills based on demand.

Consider jobs focused on finance analytics. A company might define this job in narrow terms by listing all the specific tasks it entails, for example, “Creating predictive models.” Or, the company could define the job by articulating the outcomes it wants the employee who holds this job to produce—such as “Identify trends that present opportunities for our company to enhance product and customer profitability.” The finance analytics professional would then be free to work on a variety of projects that help him meet these objectives—such as analyzing product development cost variance trends in a specific location. After every project, he would document and discuss his findings and then move on to another project where his skills are needed.

Let finance employees define their own people practicesEmployees today can create and manage their own people practices in what is known as employee-defined personalization. More than any of the other “workforce of one” approaches, this one places people management directly in the hands of the individuals whom the practices are meant to serve. Indeed, much of the impetus for employee-defined personalization has come from what has variously been dubbed mass

collaboration, peer production, web 2.0 and crowdsourcing. Through all these means, consumers—not centrally appointed experts or organizations—are conceptualizing and creating all manner of new products, services and experiences.

Companies have many options for fostering employee-defined personalization. Job swapping provides one innovative way to help employees build customized career paths. At Brazilian conglomerate Semco, about 25 percent of managers have changed jobs with one another on a yearly basis. The decision rests with the employees who decide when and where to swap jobs. Irrespective of one’s role, education and resume, anyone can swap with anyone. A comptroller once swapped roles with a sales manager, for example. Once someone identifies a fellow employee who would like to swap jobs with them, they begin to plan the change which can take anywhere from a year or two to complete. This allows both employees the necessary time to learn each other’s roles and job duties. Once swapped, the fellow employee is only a phone call away to lend assistance and support.viii Similarly, employers could provide time trading programs, by which employees trade blocks of time with one another to create customized schedules that meet their needs. For any company looking to enhance their leadership rotational programs, which are normally restricted to a few employees and require great coordination by many, time trading or job swapping programs are two ways to do so.

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Strategy 3Assign a finance talent lead

Companies can benefit by designating a finance talent lead to spearhead projects aimed at enhancing finance workforce effectiveness. The ideal person for this role will have a deep understanding of the strategies, goals, behaviors and responsibilities of the finance function. Some companies have already defined such a role on a part-time basis. However, assigning a full-time finance talent lead may be the best way to bring everything together.

In more progressive organizations, finance talent leads assemble teams of high-performance individuals who help define and deploy workforce effectiveness strategies. This team approach extends the involvement to more employees, who become talent stewards for the finance function. At one hospitality organization, employees are drafted into these positions on an annual basis and being part of the team is seen as an honor for the employee. Teams typically represent each area of the finance function and all levels that comprise it.

The situation is analogous to that of the wave of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that were implemented in the 1980s and 1990s. To help ensure that these applications met the finance function’s needs, companies assigned a finance IT lead to take charge of those efforts. The approach worked well, and we believe that a similar tack on the finance talent side could pay similar dividends today.







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Strategy 4Improve existing workforce management practices

Workforce planning and competency models have been around for some time and have gained a strong foothold as leading workforce management practices. But companies must now think about how they can get more from these practices.

For instance, rather than deploying these practices after external forces or internal changes force the issue, companies could do so in anticipation of such changes. This is especially important when a company initiates major projects requiring organizational change, such as, finance process outsourcing or shared services implementations. During such changes, a company may stand a better chance of retaining the finance professionals it needs by providing transparent career guidance and support. In other words, employers should clearly document career paths and provide career planning tools across the entire finance function. Managers could best serve the organization by figuring out beforehand what talent profiles will be needed and then take steps to ensure that the right people are in place when they’re needed. To do this, executives and managers must understand the company’s and the function’s strategic direction and the requisite skills, behaviors, and aptitude needed to support that direction.

Leveraging online technology can help. For instance, companies can post all available jobs on a centralized site accessible by employees, along with interview guidelines, behaviors and abilities required for each job, and the criteria by which candidates will be evaluated. Companies can also regularly update employees on how skills requirements are changing throughout the organization. Once employees understand

which talents are in demand in which parts of the organization, they can move to areas within the company where the demand is highest, as well as develop the skills needed to augment their portfolio.

In the past, the use of competency assessments helped companies identify high performers by figuring out who excelled at which skills. However our work with clients across regions and industries indicates organizations now realize this approach does not necessarily paint the entire picture, because in some cases promising individuals were ignored or even let go simply because they lacked the skills spelled out in the competency assessment. To address this shortcoming, a recent trend is for businesses to use human capital analytics to draw on multiple sources of information about individual employees’ potential, including performance reviews, competency assessments, personality profiles and educational background. Analysts prorate and combine data to determine an individual’s weighted performance and use that number to identify high performers. Interestingly, the pioneers in human capital analytics weren’t businesses at all but sports teams. For example, in the United States, statistical analysis has been widely used in baseball since the sport has been competitively played and it is also the foundation of Sabermetrics.ix







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Strategy 5Think fit, not just skills

Focusing too narrowly on highly specific skills is important in some situations—for instance, when a hospital hires a cardiac surgeon—but it can have disadvantages in others. To illustrate, a hiring manager who believes that the ideal candidate for an open position must have extensive experience with a particular software application may overlook internal or external candidates who would excel in the role even though they don’t have such experience.

In fact, organizational psychologists have proven that specific skills backgrounds are among the least important predictors of job performance. Far better predictors include aptitude (for instance, a person’s general understanding of the order-to-cash process versus knowing how to record an accounts receivable transaction) and cultural fit with the organization. Indeed, one competency that’s been shown to have a high correlation with performance is learning aptitude—the ability and willingness to learn quickly.

A classic example is a ready and willing cost accountant looking to become a profitability analyst. The person may not have all the right key words on her resume. But if she’s willing to learn and receives the right training, she could be one of the company’s best employees simply by applying her cost accounting reporting skills to other parts of the business.

By focusing on the notion of developable fit—a fluid approach to matching people with needs—organizations can find people who, with a little additional training, can perform the specific requirements of a job.







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Strategy 6Tap into learning innovations

Today’s finance professionals need to up-skill or re-skill while staying current with their traditional finance responsibilities. Consequently, employers and employees alike are seeing value in expanding internal learning offerings. Recent innovations have supported that expansion by making it easier for employees to continuously and cost-effectively acquire or strengthen needed skills or behaviors in the context of their everyday jobs.

One of the most effective of these innovations is the learning academy. By taking an academy approach to learning, companies can ensure that specific workforces—such as finance, supply chain and sales—build the knowledge needed to be more effective. In such academies, learning is targeted to specific jobs or career paths, designed to fill specific competency gaps, and ultimately aligned to business outcomes. The curriculum is standardized, because (for example) no one wants different members of the finance workforce analyzing an income statement or balance sheet in different ways. A learning academy can provide up-skilling

opportunities, build common knowledge, make best practices broadly available, and deliver technical, functional, and cross-functional training. Additionally, companies can augment such academies with social media, collaboration tools and with follow-on experiences to reinforce formal or informal learning. Properly designed and continuously refreshed, the academy approach can help all finance employees build their skills portfolio and improve their on-the-job effectiveness.







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Strategy 7Borrow talent in creative ways

Many companies are surprised to learn that the people they need already exist within their organizations. But to mine the organization for hidden talent, companies generally need to create a cross-business database of employee capabilities and tie it to human capital analytics and documented career paths. In addition, organizations must find ways to enable internal job mobility, such as establishing a temporary rotational program or something more permanent based on employee preferences.

To be sure, when an employee moves to a new job within the company, the employee’s boss may feel that as a manager she’s losing out while another manager is benefiting. Yet the manager who loses the employee may gain someone else from another group who is equally valuable--someone whose existence she wouldn’t have known about previously. Moreover, these programs may be important for employee retention and development. That’s because they can encourage individuals to move into different internal roles based on changing skills needs, and they can provide people the incentive for developing timely and relevant skills. Consider a company in which the person in charge of demand forecasting moves into financial forecasting, this shift not only promotes business partnering between finance and operations, it may also give the employee new developmental opportunities and challenges.

For companies that need to look externally for borrowed talent, it’s important to understand that borrowing talent doesn’t mean just using temporary staffing companies. New practices in the staffing space are enabling organizations to easily

and quickly tap into talent outside of the company to create a cadre of “just-in-time” workers who can be deployed when and where the organization needs them. For example, companies can now tap “talent in the cloud” through web-based offerings to get instant access to a vast number of flexible, skilled and cost-effective individuals who can perform work on a transactional basis.vi Types of work that can be performed in the cloud range from micro tasks such as balance sheet reconciliations during close to more complex work like project management.

Other companies are creating their own pools of prescreened, reliable talent they can tap as needed on a contract basis. People in such pools are often former employees seeking greater flexibility as they enter child-rearing or retirement years. They can hit the ground running because they already have existing networks in the company and familiarity with how the organization operates.

Finally, to create a pipeline of skilled workers, organizations can also talk about their needs with educational institutions, government agencies and collaboratively design strategies for helping people to develop needed skills. For example, a company can work with local schools to review their finance and accounting curricula and provide ideas for revising them so students acquire the knowledge businesses need.







22

Next StepsDuring the global recession and its aftermath, finance organizations have played a major role in helping their companies navigate the treacherous waters of the downturn and chart a course toward recovery.But even as the global economy seems to be on firmer footing overall, challenges remain. For example, the business environment is more volatile than ever, and the regulatory scene increasingly complex. These and other realities are forcing finance organizations to adapt to change, to continuously improve the value they deliver to their enterprise and to deliver increasingly superior customer service across the enterprise. To surmount these

new challenges, finance organizations may benefit from demonstrating a diverse set of skills and developing new approaches to finding, developing and retaining talent. Our research shows that simply relying on traditional workforce management practices won’t be enough. Instead, finance organizations may wish to apply fresh strategies for enhancing the effectiveness of their workforces.

Implementing these strategies may require significant investment in people. Finance executives who understand this can put in place the workforce practices and tools to extract maximum value from their workforce, and both the company and its people will be all the better for it.

23

Notesi “Accenture 2011 High Performance Finance Study: Delivering Value in a Complex World,” Accenture, November 2011.

ii “Davos 2012 – Pierre Nanterme”. Comments during the 2012 World Economic Forum. Access at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OTzVEJwJwU&list=PLD2B135E44250509D&index=1.

iii Smith, David; Cantrell, Susan, “Workforce of One: Revolutionizing Talent Management Through Customization,” Harvard Business Press, May 2010.

iv “Preparing for Growth – The Accenture 2013 CFO Survey,” Accenture, July 2013.

v Provost, Taylor, “The CFO as Casting Director,” CFO.com, October 3, 2012.

vi Buning, Norbert; Cantrell, Susan; Smith, David; Marshall, Breck, “Solving the Skills Crisis,” Accenture, October 2011.

vii Mangalindan, J.P., “Amazon’s Recommendation Secret,” CNNMoney.com, July 30, 2012.

viii Semler, Ricardo, “Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace,” New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1995.

ix Society for American Baseball Research site. Access at: http://sabr.org/sabermetrics.

About AccentureAccenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 266,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$27.9 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2012. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

About Accenture Management Consulting, Finance & Enterprise PerformanceAccenture is a leading provider of management consulting services worldwide. Drawing on the extensive experience of its 17,000 management consultants globally, Accenture Management Consulting works with companies and governments to achieve high performance by combining broad and deep industry knowledge with functional capabilities to provide services in Strategy, Analytics, Sales and Customer Services, Finance & Enterprise Performance, Operations, Risk Management, Sustainability, and Talent and Organization. Accenture Finance & Enterprise Performance consulting services help finance organizations maximize the value they create for their enterprises.

DisclaimerThis report has been prepared by and is distributed by Accenture. This document is for information purposes. No part of this document may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of Accenture. While we take precautions to ensure that the source and the information we base our judgments on is reliable, we do not represent that this information is accurate or complete and it should not be relied upon as such. It is provided with the understanding that Accenture is not acting in a fiduciary capacity. Opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

About the AuthorsRodney Bergman Rodney Bergman is a managing director, Management Consulting, Talent and Organization (T&O) business domain. Based in Toronto, Rodney has more than 20 years of organization design and change management consulting experience. He has global responsibility for T&O’s Workforce Effectiveness offerings and leads the Finance and Shared Service Workforce Effectiveness offerings.

Johel Davila Johel Davila, product manager for Accenture Academy. He is responsible for overseeing the finance directed sales, marketing, and development efforts of the Academy across the globe. In this role he is also a thought leader for Finance Workforce Effectiveness developing finance talent strategy and advising Accenture clients on people issues. He brings 10 years of experience working for Accenture and helping client’s finance functions elevate their levels of efficiency and effectiveness.

AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank the following Accenture employees for their contributions:

Eileen Moynihan

Sara Cima

David Axson

Terence Nulty

Sue Cantrell

David Smith

Copyright © 2013 Accenture All rights reserved.

Accenture, its logo, and High Performance Delivered are trademarks of Accenture.

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