Key findings 4
Almost two-thirds of the organisations we surveyed prefer to develop existing staff through reskilling and upskilling. Of these, 36% do so to fill skills gaps, with a further 28% stating that it also helps them control costs. A fifth prefer to hire new talent, while 16% report that skills development for the finance function is not a priority (Figure 14).
Figure 14
Skills training makes up only a very small proportion of programme spend, indicating that it is not seen as a priority. And with less than 10% of respondents stating that their transformation programmes focus on talent and employee skills, are organisations setting themselves up to fail?
Even when organisations choose to invest in the top skills gaps; digital, people and leadership skills, the majority allocate less than 10% of their training budget to these areas (Figure 15). Although this looks set to improve in coming years, two-thirds of organisations will continue to invest less than 20% of their training budget in the four areas of digital infrastructure, digital implementation, leadership and people skills.
Figure 15
We found that on average 59% of finance transformation budgets is allocated to consultants, technology upgrades and implementation (Figure 16). Over half the organisations surveyed told us that they allocate less than 10% of their budget to training new staff, with 41% reporting similar levels for existing staff.
Figure 16
When we asked organisations about their priorities for the finance training budget, we found that training in ‘people skills’, including communication, influencing and negotiation, was a lower priority than updating technical and regulatory knowledge. Almost half of the respondents (48%) stated that such training made up less than 10% of the total training budget. Leadership (41%) and digital implementation skills (44%) had similarly low budget allocations. However, increased investment was expected in all three areas, indicating that gaps in these areas have been recognised.
One reason for this restraint may be that finance’s traditional role and perception as a control function causes an innate ‘austerity mindset’ that leads it to under-invest in its own people. Finance teams are often too busy with legacy system workarounds to see past short-term firefighting. But businesses will need to invest in digital skills if they are to grow and thrive. The best data science talent does not come cheap: if employers cannot buy in new skills, they need to prioritise the development of their existing staff.
