The Finance Transformation space is undergoing a transition of its own as organisations seek professionals on a permanent basis.
Political unrest, uncertainty and impeding legislation like IR35 are pushing organisations towards the permanent recruitment market and it can only spell disaster for all of those involved.
Finance Transformation programmes often seek professionals on an Interim programme as they are finite by nature and it has traditionally made more commercial sense for people to come in on an allotted time frame and then move on but recently, there has been a shift to perm.
While this does concern me, I can see the commercial benefits of permanent hiring on a temporary basis. Perhaps it comes as a coincidence to ongoing legislation but many organisations in my network are at the very early design stage of their programmes and have quite the lifespan ahead.
With this in mind, it does make absolute commercial sense to have a permanent member of staff to implement and then embed the long-term programme but I also think it comes down to business priority.
As a profession, I have seen a shift from the emphasis of the ROI of a project to a focus on people. There is a newly overwhelming commitment and loyalty to people and an awakening to the fact that people are at the heart of change and that a programme might take a matter of months while change takes years to embed, and it’s an ongoing process.
I do understand the shift, or at least I can try to when you take into account the economic and political climate and the impact of new technology in the space but it doesn’t mean I agree with it.
The shift to permanent recruitment creates a lose-lose situation for all involved with organisations depriving themselves of the top tier of talent and that very talent, being pushed out of what has typically been a very heavily candidate-driven market.
My interim network enjoy the benefits of working on a contract basis – the flexibility, the change, the excitement and the financial reward. While permanent roles bring their benefits of a safety net and paid holiday, organisations simply cannot match the financial reward associated with the interim world of Finance Transformation.
As a result, organisations will either have to really work hard to attract this talent or compromise on lower-quality candidates and the candidates in question will really have to work hard to find the opportunities that once landed on their doorstep.
