Leadership

When FP&A Experts Leave: A Q&A With Prophix’s Phil Gravel


FEI Daily spoke with Phil Gravel, VP, Customer Success at Prophix, about how to ensure your company doesn’t miss a beat when someone from the finance team decides to leave.

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Executives are understandably concerned about staff turnover. Not only does losing employees cost time and money, but it also causes a business to lose valuable skill sets and knowledge to run most effectively. This can be especially detrimental when finance employees leave.

FEI Daily spoke with Phil Gravel, VP, Customer Success at Prophix, about how to ensure your company doesn’t miss a beat when someone from the finance team decides to leave.

FEI Daily: Can you describe the current job market, specifically for finance and accounting roles?

Phil-Gravel_Prophix-headshot.jpgPhil Gravel: Since the pandemic, the employment landscape has very much been a candidate-driven market, and attracting top talent, especially in finance and accounting roles, has been quite challenging. Employment opportunities in business and financial operations are projected to grow by eight percent from 2020 to 2030, adding about 750,800 new jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (April 2022). Interestingly, this high demand for accountants and auditors is increasing in spite of an uncertain economy, which is perhaps not surprising given increasingly complex tax and regulatory environments.

FEI Daily: What are the top concerns of executives when it comes to finance and accounting talent? How are they addressing these challenges? What is working and what is not working when it comes to retaining talent?

Gravel: Executives are justifiably concerned about possible, large-scale staff turnovers, given the “Great Resignation” we’re currently facing. According to a recent survey that Prophix conducted of almost 400 CFOs, 15% reported that finding and retaining quality talent was one of the stressors that keeps them up at night.

Not only does losing employees cost time and money, but it also causes a business to lose valuable skill sets and the knowledge it needs to run effectively. This can be especially detrimental when finance employees leave.

To help address these challenges and retain talent, executives must continue to focus on providing interesting work, flexible schedules, a work-life balance, and competitive salaries and benefits. But they also need to enable finance staff with innovative technologies that help them to do their jobs efficiently and effectively, while having a strategic impact on the business.

A corporate performance management (CPM) solution is one type of innovative technology that provides said benefits to staff. Automated CPM solutions, encompassing financial planning and analysis (FP&A) and close and consolidation features, help finance executives gain better visibility into their overall financial performance. With that, they can more efficiently budget and forecast based on current performance data.

Additionally, by leveraging AI and machine learning capabilities, finance executives can capitalize on strategic and actionable insights from real-time data to ensure growth, business continuity and competitive advantage. It also ensures that all of the Office of Finance’s data is accounted for, which reduces the risk of lost information should a finance employee leave.

FEI Daily: What is a Turnover Insurance Program and how does it help Finance managers?

Gravel: In the case of Prophix, our Turnover Insurance Program is designed to help prevent the loss of critical technology-related knowledge when a finance employee departs, enabling a company to keep its financial operations running smoothly and effectively. Through a systematic, prescriptive program delivering rapid training, an online learning academy and designated support, Prophix’s program helps to bring a new team member tasked with FP&A and closing functions quickly up-to-speed. This ensures that critical finance processes are not disrupted.

FEI Daily: What should executives understand about these programs to make them successful?

Gravel: First, ensure your CPM solution provider has a Turnover Insurance Program, or similar training and support program as a safety net. Then make sure it’s a part of your cloud-based, SaaS tech stack. In this era of unpredictable market shifts and frequent turnover, it’s essential to have a technology partner that steps in to ensure your finance team doesn’t miss a beat when a staff member leaves. Having a strong working relationship with the partner providing the program will help ensure your success.