Register a new account
Providing insight, expertise and knowledge
Navigating through the current crisis I read an interesting PwC article recently: “For years the discussion has raged about the pros and cons of flexible working – and now, suddenly, we’ve been dropped into a real-life field test. Covid-19 has forced employers out of their comfort zones and into a virtual working model at breakneck speed.”This got me thinking about the new challenges so many of the CFOs and FDs I speak to are having to get to grips with right now. Even without the commute, there is still a huge amount for any leader to think about when it comes to managing themselves and their team in lockdown. Many have been juggling parenting, home schooling and caring for elderly or vulnerable family relatives, as well as the added responsibility of leading a team from the front in this new virtual world. How easy is it to join a virtual PE Lesson with Joe wicks dressed as Spider man, then jump back to a Zoom board meeting to discuss cash flow analysis?So, how are leaders managing all of this and moving forward with the day-to-day of ensuring business continuity and motivating those reporting into them remotely? Insight from top CFOs and FDsTo get ‘real’ insight into this topic, I hosted our first virtual roundtable where we invited a small group of our top Media and Technology finance leaders to discuss the challenges they are currently facing when it comes to engaging with their teams remotely. Discussion quickly turned to the best ways of effectively collaborating to ensure productivity continues. Similar challenges and solutions were echoed around the virtual table, here are the key takeaways: 3 key insights from our virtual roundtable 1. Structured communication helps productivity In some cases, being isolated is leading to uncertainty about who to talk to on specific issues and when. This is causing team members to feel anxious and is affecting their productivity, leading to hold-ups and delays.Our roundtable participants are finding that providing a clear structure to their team meetings is helping to alleviate this. For example, many have set up a team video call at the beginning and at the end of each day to provide certainty about when and how their teams can communicate. On top of this many hold weekly or twice weekly company-wide video calls where, as senior leaders, they contribute and share top level messages to the whole company. One finance leader said, “Planning and structuring communication has been crucial in ensuring teams are working effectively. I find our morning and evening team video meetings help to keep productivity high. It’s also really clear from these who is less engaged, for example some don’t turn their cameras on or contribute to the conversations and some don’t even turn up. The challenge is how to address this remotely.”Many that are effectively planning and structuring company-wide communication are finding increased levels of staff engagement. One customer told me last week that they held their annual company meeting via Webex and that it had the highest attendance level they have ever had. Many of the finance leaders I speak to are sharing similar stories where they are finding employee engagement has in fact increased since lockdown. This may not only be because employees are keener than ever to know how they as individuals, teams or as an organisation are performing, but also because “there’s not much else to do”, “no dinner plans”, “no rushing home for child care”. Virtual company calls have evidently taken down several barriers. A CFO at our virtual roundtable said, “Our CEO now gives two half hour updates via video conference each week at the same time, company-wide and I think it’s the most engaged our staff have been with his updates ever.” 2. The importance of remaining humanIts easy to want to get straight down to business on calls but in these isolating times it more important than ever for employee engagement to remain human and make space for social activities and fun. It’s also important to remember that different personality types will behave differently through this situation and nothing should be assumed, for example you might find it’s the extroverts of the physical office who are now becoming more disengaged and vice versa. Our finance leaders agreed that taking the time to talk about things that are not always work related can help them understand how people are coping and what support they might need. Many are implementing social activities such as weekly virtual quizzes and coffee breaks where anyone can drop in and talk about anything non-work related.One leader of a shared service centre said, ‘We start the day off with a ten-question quiz to build comradery and add a fun element to our day before kicking in with the serious stuff.” 3. Choosing the right communication platform Choosing the right communication platform is also a concern for these finance leaders, many are using multiple platforms to communicate with their teams and they are conscious that there may be too many channels for employees to engage with. They are using everything from standard email through to text message, WhatsApp, Slack, Hangout, Microsoft Teams and Zoom.The group agreed that remote communication can distort the normal pace of our conversations as well as the intended delivery and interpretation of message. Therefore, choosing the right platform for their message is of great importance. Most agreed that they are still testing and learning which platforms work best for their different meetings and types of communication. One participant said, “I tend to jump onto Hangout rather than sending emails all the time to stay connected with my accounts payable team. But I’m still trying to work out the best channel as we also use Slack and I don’t want to overload people with information across multiple platforms all of the time.” I think a quote that sums up these insights perfectly comes from Mercer's 2020 Global Talent Trends study, “Balance empathy with economics”. Remaining human, managing communication and embracing technology is key.Like most, I’m interested to know what the new normal be in a week, a month and a years’ time. Will productivity of workforces remain high? Will annual meetings be held virtually? Will we continue with virtual quizzes and ‘hangouts’? Might some organisations adapt to working from home almost completely going forward? I’d like to thank our participants for such a fantastic debate and I look forward to hosting our next virtual round table very soon. If you’d like to join our next finance leader event please get in touch.
by Dora Hepworth
29 Apr 2020
Accounting & Finance
Head of Technology £80,000 - £90,000 per annum London Programme Requirements Lead £525 - £600 per day Edinburgh Senior HR Business Partner £90,000 - £95,000 per annum Berkshire Finance Business Partner £60,000 - £70,000 per annum + 10% bonus London Regulatory Reporting Accountant Up to £50,000 per annum + benefits Berkshire Business Analyst £40,000 - £50,000 per annum London A wider selection of current vacancies can be viewed on our opportunities page or get in touch for a confidential discussion about how Stanton House can help you hire great people or assist with your own career goals.
by Stanton House
02 Jan 2020
Life at Stanton House
Sophie Annett is a leader in the Finance Transformation space and has most recently held the position of Director of Finance and Accounting at Serco Plc. Starting her career training as an Accountant for KPMG she later became a Manager at Deutsche Bank before joining BT where she spent 18 years, leaving in 2018 as a Director of Shared Service Centres. Serco was an attractive offer to help satisfy her passion about automation and even more about the idea of having the right people behind it. Finding robotics I was at a Deloitte Conference five years ago when I learned about robotics. It came at a time when I was trying to change the shared service model we had in play as ultimately relying on outsourcing and offshoring to cut costs will only bring gain for a short period. I came back from the conference with my number two, intrigued and probably very annoyingly excited about the prospect of implementing RPA. My boss at the time was not a huge fan of the solution and of the opinion that it had been done before and hadn’t worked and while I knew this to be true in some areas, I challenged this perspective and decided to find out how to make it work and scalable. Defining success I spoke to circa 40 companies who had implemented / embedded RPA and created a checklist of their successes and failures to see what we would need to achieve in order to get it right first time. I was very lucky to have a Transformation Lead who was as passionate as I was about RPA and together we recruited a team to make this a success. I used past experience of other organisations to create a strategy, controls, strict governance – including sign off from internal audit, security and IT as well as ensuring the skill-sets needed to deliver and the different skills required to run RPA post-implementation after, which often gets forgotten about. Challenging the standard consultants model, I insisted on having the consultants come in and up-skill our team, thereby using the consultants as teachers to help train, up-skill and therefore ultimately retain our people. We also realised early on that it needed to be led by the business and not as an “IT project” as the business knows the pitfalls of each process – it has to be evolutionary. It was of vital importance that the IT team were there to provide the RPA platform and to support the business at every step of the way. A further lesson we learnt was the creation of a register of your bots and what process/ systems they tap into both upstream and downstream, this enables you to manage future change. We picked up quite quickly on the fact that people do not often do this. Avoiding failure The Bank of Ireland was quite an inspirational success story as they had really got it right with an emphasis on governance. Many organisations commented that they had struggled with buy in and ultimately implementation when running the programme centrally – the creation of spoke and wheel implementation plan along with strict governance proved a better model. The discussions challenged policy to the next level – for example, an interesting piece of insight was defining when you retire a robot? How many business actually think this far forward when going through RPA implementation. The end-end life-cycle needs to be thought about not just the implementation, how are you going to manage change? Creating a taskforce One achievement I’m very proud of is the introduction of the Finance Apprentice scheme in the SSC at BT, we hired a number of school leavers and looked to bring in second-time trainees who formed an interesting and vibrant team. We thought about the full life-cycle of the apprentice and I was determined to set up a programme as opposed to an intake. To aid the retention of these employees we created internal mobility programmes, RPA skills remain tricky to find in the marketplace and these skills are key to sustaining peak performance. By establishing and maintaining good people in the SSC and implementing effective RPA to free up employee time, it allows the team to be generous with their time to develop others and therefore in a constant state of continuous improvement; I’ve always encouraged questions and challenge - I’m a firm believer that if you ask for help, people always will. Presenting your findingsRobotics needs a strategy. They can be used as a sticking plaster; however, you lose the knowledge of your processes and any ongoing change will cost significantly more. I don’t believe they should be used to paper over the cracks nor can they be implemented as an emotive reaction because it is perceived to be right thing to do. Robotics are currently the main disrupter in the Finance Transformation space, you need to use solution correctly. When I first found out about RPA, I was really intrigued by the technology and kept questioning why people weren’t investing in Robotic Process Automation and for those who were, it seemed as though RPA’s poor reputation was either the result of poor strategy or it was simply not utilising the RPA solution to its full efficiency. People think of bots as a silver bullet, you put a robot in and take an FTE out but actually it’s a state of operation, and you should think of it as having a virtual team that requires management by people. One recurring question asked of me is the impact on the team i.e. “Shared Service is yet again cutting heads – will this be the end of accountants?" The last big change in the finance world was the change from paper ledgers to the spreadsheet - the end result has been more accountants with better information on a more timely basis. While it hadn’t been introduced on the right foot, I knew it had potential to change industry as we knew it. Changing pathsIn 2007, when I got into transformation, it was all about shared service centres, cutting costs and offshoring – captives were not even thought of then as the bottom-line benefits were so large. However, with hindsight this move highlighted that it’s not always about costs. When you outsource, it tends to impact the data quality and therefore your NPS, SLAs and decision-making. Whether its Eastern Europe, India or South America, location can also play an impact due to the proximity of the business. BT made the decision to move to Captive set-up to help curb the above and improve quality. There are three basic rules of what to outsource and what not to which can now be applied to robotics: 1. If the work requires business knowledge, do not outsource or automate it2. If the work includes decisions that could create a risk for the company, do not do it3. If the work requires specialist knowledge keep it in house. In effect these rules create a line between work that can be offshored, outsourced or automated and that which cant. Where that line is crossed it is likely to lead to, heavy FTE churn, skill and quality reduction, increased data security risks, increased costs of change and a bad reputation for shared service centres. This line is not set in stone, again a managed and controlled approach is best – first simplify the work, the eliminate unnecessary work, then standardise and finally automate. BPO relationships can become challenging as often too much is moved, the same can be said with captive, for robotics when you don’t have the right strategy you are increasing your risk of going too far. We should use experience to prevent this from happening again.I’m not particularly keen of an outsourcer running your RPA on an ongoing basis because it can mean that they own the Intellectual property rights which is effectively your team, processes and ability to change which is a tricky situation to reverse from. Adapting your leadership style I’m very people orientated and I believe you need to be when operating in shared service, transformation and RPA. This spans far beyond the workplace too I give the same advice to my teenage daughters, I give the same advice, do not go into a career that can be automated invest your time in something new e.g. robotics is a vibrant and growing sector. Most people like their comfort zone and mistake repetitive work as their comfort zone, it becomes dull and that’s when mistakes creep in. Push yourself out of your comfort zone and you increase the reward and you now have a new comfort zone. RPA allows for greater job satisfaction, creativity and excitement. I was taught by someone who worked for me the importance of understanding why each person comes to work – their reasons are different and if you can help match their reasons to work you will have a happy and effective team. I also believe in strengths-based leadership – we all have things we are better at and some we are not so good at. Strengths based leadership ignores perceived “weaknesses” and develops strengths. This also aligns with the theory of an incomplete leader – which in my mind fosters great teamwork. I’ve never surrounded myself with “mini-Me’s” as I know I’m not perfect!! I believe in recognising where your strengths and weaknesses are and creating a team to include all skills. I also prefer to have a team of people I admire – a team where everyone’s views and advice is key to making change successful. Accepting and driving change is key to moving forward, when teams appreciate that controlled change is a necessity, standing still is what catches organisations out. The earlier in a career someone appreciates that change is a necessity, the more doors open and options become available to them. Advice to othersChange - don’t underestimate it, to succeed you can only do so much change at once. Look at ensuring strong controls, governance and learn from the experience of others. RPA requires investment in the team and expertise – don’t underestimate or rush into it. Invaluable is to bring the business with you – make sure that the first robot is 100% accurate 100% of the time. It’s also best to start in a simple, low risk process - reconciliation are ripe for robotics. Implemented well robotics is the future of shared service. Interested in reading more of our thought-leadership on the topic of Finance Transformation? Visit our Insights page to find more!
by Jamie Weekes
18 Dec 2019
Finance Transformation
It’s hard to go a day in business without hearing the terms political and economic uncertainty, Brexit and most recently, IR35. The impending legislative changes to IR35 Regulations are just around the corner and in my world of work, it’s just about anything anyone wants to talk about. It’s become a somewhat Brexit 2.0 with a lot of discussions taking place, decisions being made and no real understanding of what it means, how it will impact us or who is really effected. We decided it was time to change that and have an intelligent but simple conversation about IR35 and what it truly means to you. In this white paper we explore how risk-averse and knee-jerk reactions to IR35 are depriving companies of their competitive edge, and ultimately, their ability to attract the best interim talent. And, for candidates, we offer a brighter prognosis for the future by highlighting the survivability of the contractor market and the examples of the Public Sector companies who made a comeback in the space. Take a glimpse into our white paper below but for full access to the paper including the full history of IR35 regulations, the lessons learned from the Public Sector and our thought-leadership, guidance, advice and simple next steps to navigating your way through the changes – please get in touch.
by Danielle Smith
11 Dec 2019
There are two types of Finance Transformation professional - Specialists and Generalists. Specialists are often given niche titles, like P2P Global Process Owner and S4HANA System Implementation Lead, and a set of very specific responsibilities. Alternatively, generalists see themselves as all-encompassing Finance Transformation professionals with a broad experience of doing a bit of everything in every arena, whether that be for example, a system implementation, shared service centre set up or process improvement project. While there is a clear divide between the two types of professionals, what there isn’t is an understanding of which one is the best and as an organisation, which is more desirable. I have posed this very question to many of my clients and it seems they too are torn. Some show a preference for specialist professionals who can come in with a wealth of knowledge about a niche subject while others reap the benefits of a generalist who brings the benefits of a diverse and varied career path and can likely turn their hand to any project thrown at them. While many remain undecided, I’m keen to hear your opinion of what the optimum Finance Transformation professional looks like and what experience they bring to the table. Are they specialist, are they generalist, have they started their career as a specialist and branched out into other areas or have they over time narrowed down their focus to one specialism after climbing the ranks as a generalist? I had this very conversation today with Finance Transformation Director in my network. Despite spending his 30-something years as a Finance Transformation professional in different pockets of transformation projects, he will only hire specialist people into his team. His experience is so varied in fact that its quite unbelievable but while he has developed a great understanding of Finance Transformation programmes over the years, his worry is that his successors will merely be a Jack of all trades in this space and a master of none. This made me wonder, is he being too selective by assuming the next generation of leaders haven’t followed his exact path or, has he got a point? In my opinion, a diverse career history is not only a vital attribute of every professional but it also makes for a better leader with more adaptability, leadership skills, stakeholder engagement capabilities and a general understanding of how different finance transformation projects operate. On the other hand, I understand that if you have a specific need you would naturally opt to hire a person with the exact career profile and is hedging a bet on someone’s similar competencies asking too much of our clients? It’s a risk but is it worth the risk and worth staying open-minded for someone with a diverse skill-set to bring to the role? I’d like to hear from you. What makes for the better Finance Transformation professional – a generalist, a specialist or, both?
21 Oct 2019
SCC Transformation Lead Up to £600 a day Reading Learning and Development Manager £45,000 - £50,000 per annum + bonus + benefits West Sussex Process Analyst - Telecoms Estates Transformation £400 - £475 per day Hampshire P2P Process SME £500 - £600 per day London Security Software Engineer US $90,000 - $110,000 per annum Chicago Senior Project Manager £65,000 - £70,000 per annum + bonus West London Head of Pricing & Commercial Finance £100,000 - £105,000 per annum + car allowance + bonus London A wider selection of current vacancies can be viewed on our opportunities page or get in touch for a confidential discussion about how Stanton House can help you hire great people or assist with your own career goals.
17 Oct 2019
Stanton House News
Stanton House has officially been crowned Recruitment Company of the year and what a phenomenal year it has been. In an awards ceremony held in London last night, CEO Neil Wilson and Finance Director Jo Finch received the prestigious prize as it was announced that Stanton House was the 2019 APSCo Recruitment Company of the Year - in the £10m to £50m Turnover category. As the pair collected the award, it was noted that Stanton House has dedicated its nine years in business to creating exceptional customer experiences and transforming the reputation of the recruitment industry. Founder and Global CEO of APSCo, Ann Swain, said: “This company clearly demonstrated its belief to improving customer experience is the key to improving the reputation of the recruitment sector. The judges felt this succinctly summarised the key to excellent recruitment.” The Recruitment Company of the Year title must be awarded to an organisation operating in either Permanent or Interim markets that has most consistently demonstrated the professional values and exceptional performance associated with APSCo membership throughout the past 12 months and it is a phenomenal achievement to be recognised as one of just four companies titled in 2019. Neil said; "We are delighted to be recognised by APSCo as the Recruitment Company of the Year. It is particularly gratifying because the judges emphasised that they were struck by our commitment to delivering exceptional customer experiences. From day one at Stanton House we set out to make that the cornerstone of how we do business. That has been acknowledged consistently by our clients and candidates so it is very rewarding to have it further validated by the recruitment sector experts at APSCo." Stanton House was founded in 2010 to transform the reputation of the recruitment industry by placing the customer at the forefront of everything we do. In our 10th year of business, we are truly honoured and filled with pride that this has been recognised by such a prestigious and renowned organisation.
09 Oct 2019
Zeeshan Tayyeb has spent almost two decades working as a Finance Director, CFO and COO for both multi-million pound corporate and start-up organisations. Having transitioned between established and disruptive companies for some time, he discusses finding his happy medium within Private Equity and how despite working longer hours, he found greater job satisfaction working in a start-up - but, are they less forgiving? I think if you look at corporate companies; due to their age or the sheer amount of time and money that has gone into their development, they have institutionalised practices which are hugely beneficial to professionals starting off their careers. These types of environments provide a safe starting place to know and understand what good practice looks like while receiving guidance from experienced professionals. You also have training programmes, room for learning, budget for development and allowances for mistakes. You learn to understand how things can go wrong as a result of a bad decision and learn how to avoid failure knowing what the consequences are. You are not going to repeat your mistakes in the corporate world as there are boundaries and structures in place to direct you and tell you that you were wrong, but you can fix it. Smaller organisations are less forgiving and a small mistake could be life or death for them. When transitioning from a larger organisation to a smaller one, a frustration both I and colleagues of mine on the same journey have faced is the speed. A smaller organisation is more agile, it takes less time to make big decisions and becomes easier to chop and change if things aren’t quite going to plan. It’s a lot more flexible in that way which can be a fantastic thing but there is definitely an adjustment period to be had. The downside of working for a leaner organisation is that you run the risk of not having your key people. The benefit of working within a corporate is the processes and people that exist to help you; which are especially beneficial for transactional services, but the same thing just doesn’t exist within a start-up. Although frustrating, this can be of real benefit to you if you join from a corporate background with the ability to implement the day-to-day methodology needed to automate and utilise a small workforce. On the reverse, moving from a career where you have only worked in start-ups into the corporate world can be difficult. In my experience, it’s much harder to transition and you would need a specific skillset whether it’s speed, agility or a niche talent that can differentiate you from others. You also need to prepare yourself for the different politics, pace and processes that exist within a corporate environment. I think the nature of how training in the two types of organisation works means that senior finance people deriving from corporate backgrounds are ultimately more experienced. They are often second to the CEO and the person everyone within the company looks to for guidance and knowledge. In a corporate role, learning is constant as you not only constantly evolve yourself to meet the growing needs of the company, but you also get to mentor a great deal of people, work alongside group CFOs and Managing Directors who are all on a learning path themselves. For full access to Zeeshan's interview and the rest of our exclusive interviews in our white paper 'Are you too corporate for a start-up?' follow the download link below. Download our white paper
by Guest Blog
07 Oct 2019
The tobacco, alcohol, gambling and fast-food industries have together carried a bad reputation for some time as prospective employees chose against working for companies that have ‘political or negative’ connotations. But, as we approach 2020 it seems attitudes are evolving with professionals caring less about a company’s product and more about the good they are giving back to the community. I ask every professional I meet about their ideal role - The industry, company and salary that they are looking for in a future employer and the three things they deem as 'non-negotiable'. The answers are often unanimous. Primarily, its salary, location and the scope of the role in first place but what is cropping up and more and more in second, is ethics. While ‘ethical companies’ have always been seen as most attractive to their prospective talent pool, it’s not so much the product or reputation of the company that now gets taken into consideration but rather, what they are doing to change it. It’s no longer about Coca-Cola littering streets with empty bottles or supermarkets stocking palm-oil based products or tonnes of unnecessary plastic. Now employees are more concerned with what companies are doing to redeem themselves – the ocean hoovers pledged by Coca-Cola for instance and the likes of Iceland making a move away from Palm Oil. Philip Morris International (PMI) is also on the list. Tobacco companies have always struggled with talent attraction with many professionals either anti-smoking or anti its effects but this is changing for the world’s largest tobacco company – valued at more than $175 million – as it launches an anti-smoking campaign with the slogan “The best choice any smoker can make is to quit cigarettes and nicotine altogether.” PMI and Coca-Cola are just two examples of high-profile companies making the move to sustainable branding and it mirrors the evolving mindset of many professionals within my network. While ethics have always been high on the agenda of professionals seeking a new career, what is fascinating is this move away from a hatred of ‘negative brands’ and a new focus on what they give back – the source of their products, the good they are bringing back into the community and how they use their power for good. I’d love to hear your views on the move to what I like to call ‘redemption ethics’ – are you a professional looking for a company with an inspiring social impact or perhaps you work for an organisation working to promote it’s goodness?
by Hannah Minker
04 Oct 2019
The Hiring Process
Browse a selection of this week's top jobs across Accounting and Finance, Technology, Cyber Security, Human Resources, Change Management and Finance Transformation: Finance Business Partner £65,000 - £70,000 per annum + package Reading IT Governance Reporting Analyst £450 - £550 per day London Azure Security Architect Negotiable Luxembourg Finance Analytics Manager £70,000 - £75,000 per annum + benefits package Surrey Project Manager - Sales Data £450 - £510 per day London Senior PHP Engineer £45,000 - £55,000 per annum Edinburgh Finance Manager - Germany £350 - £450 per day Hampshire HR Business Partner £50,000 - £55,000 per annum + car allowance and benefits package London A wider selection of current vacancies can be viewed on our opportunities page or get in touch for a confidential discussion about how Stanton House can help you hire great people or assist with your own career goals.
02 Oct 2019
Aside from the infamous hot-dogs, deep-dish pizzas, jazz music and gangsters, the Windy City is home to an array of incredible Cyber Security professionals and I’m raring to meet them when I move over in just a few weeks’ time. We’ve been focusing on the US market for the past few months from London, but as of October, I’ll be on the ground in Chicago and expanding the Stanton House US offering with a keen focus on the Cyber Security market. It goes without saying that I’m dead excited from a personal perspective to move to such a wonderful city, but as well as that, Chicago homes a wide range of industries needing protection from the ever-growing threat of cyber attacks. I feel energised by the idea that the team and I have the opportunity to support corporate America through introducing Cyber talent to vulnerable organisations. I started out my career at Stanton House focusing on the Accounting and Finance market but my interest in technology and desire to provide solutions for our clients, led to me setting up a team focused on Finance Transformation. My venture into Cyber Security allows me to not only satisfy my own fascination with the world of technology, but also help executives deal with one of their biggest preoccupations: protection of data. Whilst I have an amazing adventure ahead of me, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone in my network who has supported me in my career to date. Whilst working in America has always been a dream of mine, it has been a thoroughly enjoyable six years with the UK team and it goes without saying you’re in the safest of hands once I hop across the pond. I will continue to remain connected to the UK market and do not intend on losing touch with you all. If you ever need any support, advice or just fancy catching up, don’t hesitate to drop me an email. For anyone else floating around in the states, I’d love to meet for a coffee and maybe trade in some geeky Cyber dialogue for a tour around the city!
by Henry Yeomans
27 Sep 2019
For some time, we have been talking about the evolution of the Finance Professional. No longer numbers-driven and chained to a desk but more commercial, strategic and influential. While we once saw a sharp contrast between Transactional and Commercial Finance Professionals, they have equally become commercially-savvy and approachable, able to influence stakeholders and translate ‘finance’ into a language the workforce understands. But this progression of the Finance Professional is merely a microcosm of the massive changes taking place in the industry as the Finance space evolves with the changing times, technology and political climate. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is one example of the technology revolutionising the Finance Transformation space but it’s not just tech taking over. The current political and economic climate is clouded with uncertainty meaning the traditionally temporary marketplace is making a move to Perm. Organisations are now seeking a Finance Transformation professional on a Permanent basis to cut costs and minimise disruption in longer-term projects but it isn’t landing well with the professionals they need to succeed. Transformation professionals thrive in the dynamic world of Interim work. They enjoy the diversity, the financial reward and the flexibility – three things not regularly associated with permanent employment. I met with a Transformation Director at a FTSE 20 company recently and she spoke about this feeling of freedom. The freedom to move from project to project, influence the business in such a short space of time and utilise new technology in new ways – something she wouldn’t be able to achieve in a permanent role and it made me question the longevity of this 'move to perm'. While technology revolutionises the Finance space and uncertainty reshapes the recruitment trends that sit within it, I’d like to hear from you. How have you seen the industry evolve and what change is on the horizon?
by Olivia Clarke
26 Sep 2019
Stay informed and get the latest insight into the new era of work. Explore and download copies of our recent leadership insight papers.
.png?v=a04a41021c577c766446b85e425c6e9d)
