Deloitte released new data that suggested over 82% of hiring managers for financial-based positions at public companies believe talent retention is a significant challenge, compared to 68% of hiring managers at private companies. The response from hiring managers at public companies also emphasised the efforts needed to attract and retain employees, while the findings were lower for private companies.

Matthew Hurley, senior manager at Deloitte Advisory, explains that there could be several factors such as company and team size, the complexity of work and even location that could create this gap. Private businesses highlight similar issues to public companies, but a lesser extent. The three drivers influencing hiring over the next 12 months include:

The need for additional headcount in existing areas where workloads are increasing. This could be partly due to a rise in regulations. For example, ESG reporting requirements have increased workloads for some members. Various standards have been released in the last few years and increased the workloads for finance professionals.

The second factor is obtaining talent with technological skills. Many large businesses are experiencing major finance transformation projects. New technology, including AI and machine learning, is rising rapidly. Companies are exploring ERP (enterprise resource planning) upgrades and updates.

Attrition is created by the Great Resignation. While the study by Deloitte suggests hiring managers believe many employees were leaving for higher pay, there were other impacts such as respondents from public companies moving for a better title and employees deciding to change industries. 

Hurley explains that this isn’t a problem that can be solved solely by investing money. We need to think carefully about what is vital to our people. The battle for talent is ongoing in many industries, and finance has been impacted considerably. Hurley believes it isn’t necessarily a decline of interest in finance. Hurley highlights that discussing the talent challenge with CFOs is finding talent with a mix of finance and technological capabilities is creating existing challenges.

There is also a drive to keep the younger generation interested in finance careers and provide them with the right skill sets. More education institutions are exploring ways to engage with finance leaders to determine what training they need to provide to ensure their graduates are successful. Many universities are taking courses in machine learning, robotic process automation, new analytics and data courses.