Strategic Intelligence for CFOs, Finance Directors, Controllers and Treasurers in Asia  | 
2012, May 23

How To Retain the Mid-Career Finance Manager

Home > Features > How To Retain the Mid-Career Finance Manager
Features

How To Retain the Mid-Career Finance Manager

by Cesar Bacani, 29 August 2011
topics:
Human Capital Management Management
tags:
finance team mid-career finance manager recruitment retention talent management

Look around you. How many people in your company’s finance function had left in the past year? Chances are, if you have a 100-strong finance team, ten or 12 of them would have moved on to other companies or retired in the past 12 months.

 
The typical attrition rate in finance, according to panellists at the recent CFO Innovation Asia Forum in Singapore, is 10%.
 
That’s manageable, if the leavers are entry-level staffers. “I frankly don’t lose sleep over it,” said Steve Dwyer, Director of Finance, Asia, at US metalworking solutions company Kennametal. “We see the departures as an opportunity to upgrade.” 
 
What is more worrying is when those who have been with the finance team for five to eight years become restive. “The key thing is that managers and supervisors and their experience and knowledge remain with the company,” said Ben Ho, Vice President Finance, Asia Pacific, at Henkel (China) Investments.  
 
But what if finance managers, assistant treasurers and other mid-tier finance professionals feel they are ready for bigger opportunities than what the company is willing or able to give them? It is in cases like these that CFOs ask themselves: What should be done?
 
The panellists had plenty of suggestions. They include: 
  • Give your people a career path, so even if they are not promoted today, they know there is a ladder for them to climb

 

  • Grant them ‘transition rewards’ while the company is not yet ready to promote them, for example by sending them on training and other assignments abroad

 

  • Rotate people in different assignments – in accounting, transactions, treasury, shared services, business lines, countries – to keep them fresh and interested

 

  • Nurture personal connections among finance team members and the CFO, for example through breakfast meetings, sports fests, karaoke sessions

 

  • Widen the finance talent pool by recruiting outside the home market, to such labour-surplus countries like Myanmar and the Philippines
     
Career Paths
It is always interesting to listen to and interact with a panel of CFOs, whose experiences and insights originate from the trenches. In this case, the panellists came from a range of industries and company types.
 
In addition to Ho and Dwyer, who was previously Asia CFO for GE before moving on to Kennametal, the finance chiefs on the panel were Chey Hui Chia, CFO of Philips Electronics Singapore, Chee Ming Pang, Finance Controller at Steelcase, and Gabriel Low, Regional Financial Controller and CFO (SEA) at GEA Westfalia Separator.
 
It is relatively easy to develop career paths in a multinational organisation, given the range of business lines and geographies in a conglomerate such as GE and Philips, for example. Promotion paths may be rather limited in a regional or local company, and even more so in a start-up or a small or mid-sized business, where the CEO (and founder/owner) may also be the CFO-equivalent or may reserve that sensitive post to a relative or a trusted lieutenant.
 
123next ›last »


Related articles

Comment on this article

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <a> <p> <span> <div> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <img> <img /> <map> <area> <hr> <br> <br /> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <table> <tr> <td> <em> <b> <u> <i> <strong> <font> <del> <ins> <sub> <sup> <quote> <blockquote> <pre> <address> <code> <cite> <embed> <object> <strike> <caption>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Use <!--pagebreak--> to create page breaks.

More information about formatting options

Verification Code
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Accounting and Regulations

CFO innovation Asia Accounting and Regulation the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Accounting Regulation, IFRS, US GAAP, Tax, investor relations, corporate governance, Corporate Law, Financial Regulators, Internal Audit, Audit, Corporate Law.
Auditing, Investor Relations, Law and Compliance, Tax

Finance and Banking

CFO innovation Asia, Finance and Banking the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Corporate Finance, trade finance, treasury and risk management, capital expenditure, Banking, mergers and acquisitions
Cash and Liquidity Management, Corporate Finance, Insurance, Treasury Management

Management

CFO innovation Asia the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Finance Management, Corporate Governance, Human Resource Management, Compensation and Benefits, Mergers and Acquisitions, Professional Development, Corporate Real Estate, Risk Management, Budgeting and Forecasting, Business Process Management, Business Process Reengineering, Outsourcing.
Budgeting and Planning, Business Expense Management, Human Capital Management, Outsourcing and Shared Services, Risk Management

Metrics

Corporates, Financial Services

Technology

CFO innovation Asia Technology the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Finance Systems, Business Intelligence, EPR, Accounting software, CRM, Cloud Computing, Telecommunications, Business Process Outsourcing, Business Process Management Software.
Business Intelligence, Enterprise Software and Systems, Financial Systems, Security