How To Build The Finance Workforce Of Tomorrow

The modern world demands modern solutions to its most pressing current, and future, needs. Despite the rising tide of AI, automation and a new normal of cautious growth, business success hinges on the talent you inspire to join you and how you develop them.

To build a world class workforce who can meet the challenges of tomorrow, businesses must make valued assessments on what those challenges are, and how and when those challenges will arise. Preparation should always be a central component of your risk strategy, but the pandemic has ushered in a much more risk-centric form of hiring and retention of talent.

What are the major challenges of tomorrow’s financial workforce?

Here are what we feel are the major bulwarks to future growth and the central challenges to the future of finance:

  • Alternate providers of capital are set to become an even more important part of the global financial system (Akin Gump).
  • COVID-19 may accelerate the implementations of current and planned regulatory measures in many countries and regions (KPMG).
  • Building a sustainable agenda as a central component of ECG and customer engagement (Grant Thornton).
  • Stakeholder alignment across businesses and industries (Enable).
  • Resilience, agility and sustainability of the finance industry (OECD)

So when upgrading outdated core systems, talent agility, wider sustainable initiatives and more insightful and competitive industry knowledge are required to meet the challenges of the future. What kind of financial team do you need to build? Rather than a deep dive into the weeds of finance, let us look at it holistically:

Skills and development

  • Training and development of skills required for a more digital, more competitive future starts before work. Corporations and enterprise scale companies have the size to make hugely positive impacts on STEM learning and better engagement with career pathways. However, every financial professional has a stake in building an environment of better development and training for the next generation through active mentorship and community outreach.

Agility

  • The average worker will have approximately 12 jobs in their lifetime, and younger workers are increasingly looking towards portfolio living as a desirable culture of work. Recruitment then will have to take stock of these changing expectations to career building and ally itself with the needs of the next generation.

Modernisation starts internally

  • We do not just mean upgrading legacy software. We mean the entire culture of recruitment and retention focusing on improved performance management; a better, more allied culture of work with empathy at the forefront of management, and continual stakeholder engagement and communication.

Sustainability

  • The future must be greener. For example, finance is excessively carbon-intensive on IT systems, and crypto-currency has attracted unfavourable publicity recently due to high profile figures decrying its carbon footprint. Invest in sustainable practice, teach your staff sustainable methodology and advocate for a greener future. Your world deserves it.

The future of finance hinges on the ability of its workers to ride the wave of cultural change while seamlessly working collaboratively with customers across the financial spectrum.

Change is not guaranteed, however, and will take active participation from business leaders and executive level HR teams to critically analyse where their own processes and models are at risk.

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Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash

09-06-2021

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