Olivia McMillan, COO at iplicit
It’s not easy attracting people into a profession that so many want to leave. For employers in the finance sector, this has become a real challenge in recent years.
A staggering 71% of finance professionals in the UK say they are looking for a new job outside the sector, according to research by Medius. With so many eyeing up alternative career paths, concerns about who the next generation of employees will be are also mounting. We recently surveyed 1,000 midmarket finance leaders at iplicit, and 80% said they were worried about the lack of new talent entering their industry.
By now, most of us will have heard of the digital skills shortage impacting UK SMEs’ ability to recruit and retain talent, across numerous sectors. This seems like the most logical issue to pin as the scapegoat. But for the finance sector, I don’t believe it’s the lack of tech skills that’s exacerbating recruitment challenges. I believe it’s the lack of tech altogether that’s to blame.
Is finance outdated?
For employers to attract a new generation of finance professionals, they need to be able to present it as an enjoyable, aspirational career.
Yet, the reality today is that many young people still see finance as outdated. A career spent buried in spreadsheets behind a desk. The industry has long struggled to shake this image and hasn’t done a great job of presenting itself as tech-forward, appealing or relevant to the new generation.
This is particularly true for midmarket organisations. There are tens of thousands of SMEs in the UK still reliant on legacy, on-premises finance systems. Systems that have become too stressful and cumbersome for finance teams to use efficiently. Unable to integrate with other cloud-based systems and acting as mere ‘data repositories’, with time-consuming, error-prone excel sheets and data consolidation needed on both ends.
The stereotype of finance people as risk-averse “bean counters” who are slow to embrace new tech and stay buried in spreadsheets is frustrating and unfair. But it’s an inevitable by-product of this reluctance to modernise. And changing this perception for the new generation is never going to be easy when the job is often more routine and repetitive than it needs to be.
When we asked finance leaders about their main sources of inefficiency, 37% said excessive time spent manipulating data in spreadsheets, 28% said the lack of integration between ERP systems, and 25% blamed data silos.
Attracting digital natives
These problems can be solved with better technology. But until that tech is widely adopted, finance leaders will struggle to show that they can offer a rewarding career to digitally savvy youngsters.
The reality is that young people are used to user-friendly, intuitive software on the devices they use day-to-day. And even the seasoned finance professionals have grown fond of their smartphones, smart watches, and smart TVs. These user-friendly tech experiences are available everywhere except for their midmarket finance systems. Which might explain why so many are looking to jump ship into other professions or are avoiding careers in finance altogether. There’s enough old-fashioned paperwork going on in midmarket finance to repel even those who entered the profession before the invention of the smartphone!
We’re seeing too many talented finance professionals spend valuable time hunting for invoices and attaching them to emails. Chasing colleagues to authorise invoices and expenses that are sat in inboxes or physical in-trays. Rekeying data from one piece of software to another. All of this takes up time, creates room for error, and adds the risk of stress and burnout. And above all, it perpetuates a bad image to potential young recruits about what a career in finance might look like for them.
The threefold benefits of change
We’ve seen there’s a serious shortage of new talent in the finance sector, adding to the strain on its existing workforce. But I do believe technology will play a pivotal role in filling some of that gap.
Cloud-based finance systems, automation, and even AI will continue to alleviate an increasing share of the more routine tasks, enabling finance teams to do more with less. As we’ve seen above, the employers that struggle most to attract talent will also tend to be the ones that are slowest to embrace that same technology. With research from Laserfiche finding that almost half (49%) of employees aged 21 to 24 would consider resigning due to their employer’s outdated, difficult tech, the benefits of better systems have never been clearer.
At a time when hiring is difficult and expensive, more intuitive systems enable you to get the best from your existing team by reducing transactional tasks and releasing people to do higher-value work.
Adopting the best technology sends a positive message to the new talent pool, too. Potential recruits can see that yours is a forward-thinking organisation that won’t bog them down in outdated processes.
And better technology makes the job more rewarding for everyone, new hires and old hands alike. When we let machines do the tasks that are best done by machines, we release our people to provide the expertise that only human beings can deliver. And create careers that promise true work-life balance and development. This makes a job in finance more meaningful, reduces the stress on existing staff and makes our people more likely to stay.
We know there are many people out there who think a career in finance would be repetitive and boring. Our challenge is to make sure it isn’t.
