According to Kimball Norup, from Synergy Services, Chief Financial Officers (CFO) play a challenging role, acting as internal business partners and advisors on many business disciplines. One of such disciplines is Total Talent Management.

This should not come as a surprise, as CFOs are fiduciary responsible for revenues, expenses and profit. Companies’ largest expense tend to be people, therefore, CFOs know the importance of managing people in an effective way.

Total Talent Management comprehends two parts: traditional employees –either full or part-time- and contingent workers –temporary workers, freelancers, consultants and independent contractors-. Contingent workforce is being increasingly demanded by companies, becoming more and more important for their operations and results.

Considering these facts, what is the role CFOs should play? Norup provides four key ideas.

• CFOs must have a clear idea of what is being spent, where and with whom. Having a total management program shall grant the CFO spend visibility and control of costs throughout the company, including traditional and flexible workers.
• Besides visibility, CFOs must have forward looking insight on labour spend. Though traditional workforce tends to be stable, contingent workforce has a variable impact. A proper contingent workforce program provides reporting and data analytics that enable de CFO to better plan and forecast the future. As Norup states “good data enables them to better estimate talent needs, the funds required to pay for that labour, and the cash flow ramifications of projects that will utilize contingent labor”.
• CFOs must ensure that contingent workers are properly classified and that taxes, contributions, payroll and consultant invoicing are being correctly handled.
• Finally, CFOs must make sure that category management is handled in a strategic way. This can be achieved with a proper contingent workforce management program, addressing issues such as: vendor rationalization, rate optimization, contract negotiation, contract standardization and compliance.

As you can see, modern CFOs must handle a variety of issues they did not need to care for in the past. Exploring Total Talent Management can help them to be able to meet the challenge.

Source: Synergy Services