Even Corporate Finance Departments Struggle With the “Skill Gap”

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

In a February, 2016 issue CFO Magazine article entitled “All in the Family,” author David McCann discusses the problems facing CFOs regarding “talent management. He identifies four problems they face in looking ahead to the year 2020:

• 70% of finance positions will experience a change in skill requirements over the next five years. However, HR competency models lag the new skills requirements.
• Only 36% of employees have a real understanding of internal capabilities. HR can design standard career paths but cannot push employees to the right opportunities.
• Traditional training only has a 3% impact on finance skill development. Training vendors often fail to apply courses and content to a given team’s day-to-day work.
• Recruiting is not able to identify who would be a strong financial analyst beyond backgrounds and accreditation, limiting the scope of potential strong ties.

The article’s author goes on to discuss the virtues of “renting expertise” versus building capacity, but does not really go into detail on how a CFO would build capacity.

The predicament described is not a new one. It is the same gap that has grown with regard to manufacturing skill gaps of production workers. This is further evidence that gaps have grown in the areas of engineering, technical management and, yes, finance as well.

A 2015 report by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute entitled “The Skills Gap in U.S. Manufacturing – 2015 and Beyond,” reported that executives have great concern for shortages that exist today in skilled areas and what they project for 2020:

Skills Shortage in Different Workforce Categories: 2014 and 2020

It points to the growing reality that educational institutions are unable to keep the core skill development of students, both low skills and higher order skills, relevant to the needs of industry. They never really were, but 30 years ago technology was not advancing at the rate it does today, rendering established curricula and a graduate’s skill base increasingly inadequate. Additionally, if no action is taken, incumbent worker skill bases are susceptible to further erosion.

Mr. McCann discusses renting expertise or building capacity as solutions CFO should consider. Yet one would ask what makes the expertise of “rented” experts so valuable if they are developed by the same system? It most likely is the direct workplace experience that gives them value. Building capacity makes more sense, but admittedly requires a greater commitment to building the structure to transfer expertise.

Proactive Technologies would approach any job classification, for which an infrastructure to build capacity by replicating experts, is necessary:

1. Job/Task analyze the current job for the way tasks are performed today;
   1. Includes task-specific procedural “best practice” steps, compliance information, etc.
   2. Ensure data is reviewed/approved by area subject matter experts

2. Develop materials to support the worker development effort
   1. Training Materials (for area trainers)
   2. Training Checklists (for the learner to document task mastery)
   3. Technical Document (job performance reference aid)
   4. Other support documents such as Job Descriptions for hiring and employee-specific Performance Appraisals for performance measurement once training is completed

3. Implement the “accelerated transfer of expertise^TM;”
   1. Use the structure to quickly transfer expertise from in-house experts to trainees
   2. Track each trainee’s development to “full job mastery”
   3. Report progress monthly

4. Continuously improve job data and worker development delivery
   1. Update job data to update training materials for changes in tasks/addition of emerging tasks
   2. Update workers to ensure skills reflect current needs

Although Mr. McCann identified one more area where skilled worker shortages may disrupt businesses through the immediate future, it was worth mentioning for those who choose to build capacity, literally “growing their own experts,” there is a proven, very cost-effective way to build the infrastructure that accelerates the transfer of expertise, lowers the internal costs of training while raising worker capacity, work quantity, work quality and compliance, and makes managing a high level of worker capacity possible.

Take a few minutes and attend one of the live online presentations offered. You may find it to be time well spent.