Building a Future-Forward AP Team, Part 2: Focus on Talent

The capabilities brought to your organization by your AP team can make a big impact on your company’s ability to meet goals today and into the future. Good thing that with the right insights and know-how, preparing for tomorrow can start today. In Building a Future-Forward AP Team, Part 1: Assessing Your Needs, we explore how to get started. But once you’ve got a handle on your department’s role in supporting strategy and assessed your team’s competencies, it’s time to start filling skills gaps with internal talent or the hiring boards. What follows is some advice to support your journey.

Develop Your Existing Team

It’s likely your company is adopting new technology and making adjustments to workflows—times of change, while disruptive, are opportunities for team growth and skills development. As your AP employees are taking on new responsibilities and riding along their learning curve, you can ensure they understand the importance of their skill-building. While it requires implementing a new performance management approach, it’s a chance for career enhancement that has been shown to boost employee engagement and company loyalty.

Here are the effective people management strategies of the top procurement organizations evaluated in Ardent Partners’ Building a Best-in-Class Procurement Operation study:

• 71% Increase business skills training
• 62% Active mentoring
• 56% Increase software/technology training
• 54% Improve supplier relationship management skills
• 47% Improve category management skills

Find a wealth of helpful tips in 3 Tips to Prepare Your Payments Organization for What’s Next.

Recruit Wisely

You may need to hire new talent to bring in the range of skills and competencies required for long-term departmental success. As already addressed, well-qualified candidates in the accounting industry are in high demand, making for a competitive job market. Put your best foot forward with a hiring strategy that delivers the best potential employees to your team—a task that might mean moving out of your traditional recruiting comfort zone. The 4Q 2016 hiring trends from Brilliant indicate the top sources of new hires in accounting and finance:

• Search and recruitment firms – 32%
• Referrals, Word-of-mouth – 20%
• Online job boards – 20%
• Internal promotions – 9%
• Resumes via company website – 7%
• E-mailed resumes – 2%
• Social media – 10%

Over half (52%) of companies in the Brilliant study, in fact, are using social media to recruit accounting finance talent. And chances are good the talent you’re looking for are avid social media users.

Make Room for Millennials

This goes without saying, doesn’t it? Research firms have estimated that by 2025, 75% of the global workforce will be comprised of Millennials. What’s more, over 3 million baby boomers are retiring in 2016, and over one quarter of millennial workers will become managers. EY’s global study on work-life challenges across generations notes that globally, 62% of millennials already manage the work of others

These technology-savvy individuals are shaping the future. They are the future. Jennifer Warawa, Global Vice President of Product Marketing at Sage, states the following in the Forbes article How Millennials Are Changing The Accountant Of Tomorrow:

“Accounting as a profession has perhaps been a bit reluctant to embrace new technologies, such as the cloud. Millennials have no such hang-ups. They love the cloud and the flexibility it offers. So, if anything, I believe they will do more to increase widespread technology adoption, which will in turn contribute to the changing role of the CFO. CFOs and financial executives will need to be better versed on available technology and what makes sense for the size and scale of their organization, with an eye on potential growth and scale in the future.”

Read more in Millennials Drive B2B eProcurement Adoption

While preparing your AP team—no matter what generation they represent—to meet the challenges and opportunities of the future, you may find that bringing in new talent is the best way to ensure your functional area has exactly what it needs for success. And now, more than ever, success is defined by more than the ability to complete day-to-day accounting tasks; success is more closely linked to alignment with strategic goals and objectives—and the team of people who work together to take operations to the next level.