According to a recent article in CFO.com (Always Growing Means Always Recruiting), a growing finance team should always be in hiring mode.
We recently touched on this subject in our recent blog post A Strong CFO needs a Strong Finance Team.
Should a CFO always be hiring? Well, let’s see…
For a CFO to be successful, they need a strong team to support them.
For a CFO to have a strong team, they need to properly manage their talent.
For a CFOs to properly manage their talent, they need to have a Talent Plan.
A Talent Plan requires understanding the needs of the team today and in the future, the current structure and capabilities of the team, identifying growth opportunities for key performers, and managing the probabilities that staff will leave the company.
In the context of a Talent Plan, ‘always hiring’ is a good idea. However, done outside a well prepared Talent Plan, time and effort will not be spent efficiently or effectively.
Indeed, Samuel! There is a huge gulf between having a resume dump and having a talent plan that involves building relationships with future prospects. The former is nothing more than a glorified job board that overwhelms HR and is not conducive to creating a top-notch talent plan.
I like the approach mentioned on CFO.com that “always recruiting” could be a comparantive advantage and in some cases it is a must. However recruiting focus should only come after identifying and retaining talent focus. Recruiting is highly cost and time ineffective if you already have the people within but you are not able to identify and retain then. On the other hand if you need somebody from outside – and I agree here with Samuel – for having the talent management plan in place but being unable to find him / her internally, the proactive recruitment could be a very effective tool and approach.
Cindy and Oliver, Thank you for your insights into the subject.
What I am saying, and will continue to say on the subject is this:
For a CFO to be successful, they need a strong team to support them. The only way to ensure they have a strong team is to not only manage the workload, but to manage the talent as well. A CFO that doesn’t manage his or her talent is setting themselves up for difficulties, inefficiencies and firefighting that could have been mitigated with a proper Talent Plan.
Samuel
I agree with your last sentence, Samuel. I have known many CFOs that became too comfortable with difficulties, inefficiencies and firefighting over the past few years, and that created undue stress on the rest of the organization. It was obvious to everyone else that proper planning – in talent management and other areas as well – could have averted such adverse consequences, and it would have taken less time as well.
I agree with Samuel about having a strong support team, however, I don’t feel like CFO’s have to make full time hires for support. Our firm offers CFO’s a temporary resource (on an hourly basis) to help them with transactions or special projects.
We are a team of former bulge bracket investment banking and private equity professionals, that develop tailored financial tools such as detailed financial projections, operating dashboards and key performance indicators across business lines, offering CFO’s and management teams a sought after resource.
Sonny
Thank you for sharing your point of view.
I agree that project professionals such as yourself and your team have a place in the ‘getting it done’ landscape.
My point is this: Ask any CFO whether they would prefer having a full-time and permanent resource or a project professional, they would prefer to staff their team with people that will add value on a regular and consistent basis.
Samuel