Today, CFOs must reevaluate their approaches to both empowering their existing teams and attracting top talent. One of the biggest reasons why we see many in Finance & Accounting leaving their jobs today is because they feel bogged down with mundane and repetitive tasks and are not given the adequate tools they need to be successful in fulfilling their role. A recent PwC “Pulse Survey” reported that eight out of nine executives say they’re experiencing higher-than-normal turnover right now. So, it’s no surprise that 81% of CFOs are concerned that high turnover and labor shortages will impact their company’s revenue growth in 2022.

CFOs can help retain their talent through finance automation and evolving their F&A teams with the future in mind. And as environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) is becoming a major focus in organizations, it also has a large impact on talent. There are numerous ESG challenges that affect the Office of Finance, and organizations are beginning to tackle these issues by re-evaluating the “social” in environmental, social, and corporate governance.

Using Finance Automation to Empower Your Talent

Employee satisfaction not only supports the creation of more valuable outputs to benefit the overall company, but is also a key factor in reducing employee churn. F&A teams that leverage state-of-the-art automation tools work more efficiently, have reduced friction in their processes and communication and are overall more productive. These employees are also happier and more fulfilled by their careers, making them far more likely to stay with a company.

The Office of Finance has been under increased pressure to provide real-time business-critical insights to drive confident decision-making for the business, while still maintaining their typical workload. This added pressure has led many members across F&A organizations to feel burnt out, stressed, or overwhelmed because the right technology isn’t in place to support them. In addition, with many companies in either a remote or hybrid work environment, the lack of technology to help streamline workflows and processes also results in bottlenecks that lead to further dissatisfaction for employees.

To help alleviate this stress, financial automation becomes a must have – not a nice to have. Financial automation empowers employees to shift their focus from the manual, low-value, repetitive tasks to more strategic and challenging responsibilities, resulting in greater satisfaction from their work and the ability to effectively deliver on new demands the organization requires.

In the video above, Omar Choucair shares his thoughts about how talent retention will impact an organization’s top-line revenue. This was a segment from Trintech’s webinar “How Automation Can Help F&A Teams with the “Great Resignation” Challenge, which you can watch here.

ESG Challenges

The Office of Finance is playing an integral role in ESG reporting – F&A teams need to be able to quantify efforts that organizations are making on behalf of ESG initiatives. With this pressure to present tangible reporting of ESG initiatives, there are a few challenges that the Office of Finance faces:

• Lack of harmony in reporting rules and regulations
• Providing financial statements that reflect the success of ESG initiatives
• Ensuring budget changes and investments that enable ESG initiatives while supporting the business

While these challenges may seem daunting, there is hope. ESG reporting and regulatory bodies are working on standardizing regulations and reporting requirements. As ESG reporting becomes normal, the Office of Finance can hone-in on ways technology can enable accurate reporting and showcase financials that reflect ESG initiatives. To tackle these challenges, organizations must start with their people and processes. When teams leverage automation now, they will be more prepared to take on new ESG standards as they get rolled out.

ESG Benefits your Talent and your Organization

An article from FEI states that employee retention helps save an organization’s bottom line. Turnover costs an organization a great deal – in ways that are seen and unseen. By investing in your team, through finance automation, increased benefits or compensation, or giving teams flexibility in remote or hybrid work, you can contribute to a healthier workplace, reduction in stress, and overall satisfaction, increasing the retention of their talent.

Furthermore, talent that is engaged, and focusing on higher-level activities have more opportunities to contribute to the strategic direction of their organization. This increases employee satisfaction, as well as retention while also increasing the value of your organization.

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Written by: Mikayla Jordan