Talent shuffle: Why people want to change jobs and how leaders can adapt

Sponsored by Thomson Reuters

At several points over the past six years, employee retention has ebbed and flowed. In part, workforce trends have been tied to the COVID-19 pandemic hastening the predominance of remote and hybrid work. And, more recently, economic uncertainty has contributed to employee sentiment.

On this episode of the Journal of Accountancy podcast, two Robert Half executives discuss general hiring trends and the outlook for accounting and finance roles. Additionally, they examine the dynamics of promoting from within versus hiring externally.

And, in case you missed it, news dropped on publication day that even a Hollywood director might have found interesting: ENGAGE keynote speakers were announced.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Why nearly 40% of employees say they plan to look for a new job in 2026 and how that compares with recent trends such as “the big stay.”
• Some of the factors employees are considering in their decision to find work elsewhere.
• Steve Saah’s reminder that the demand for accounting and finance professionals remains strong even as hiring managers say it’s becoming more challenging to find skilled candidates.
• Kathy Burton’s explanation for why companies should move away from thinking about “diminishing” skillsets.
• The importance of upskilling and reskilling and why “courageous curiosity” is a valued trait.

Play the episode below or read the edited transcript:

— To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Neil Amato at Neil.Amato@aicpa-cima.com.

Transcript

Neil Amato: Are more workers looking for a new job this year than in previous years? And, where do organizations stand on promoting from within for leadership roles?

Those questions and more will be addressed in this edition of the Journal of Accountancy podcast.

That’s coming shortly. First, we have news about the keynote speakers for the 10th edition of ENGAGE.

Announced earlier today, Thursday, Feb. 26, for the June conference: Actor and entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds and former Costco CFO Richard Galanti will headline day one of ENGAGE on June 8, with a conversation focused on creatively taking risks and the role of storytelling in business. Again, Ryan Reynolds and the former CFO of Costco are the keynote speakers at ENGAGE.

Now, here’s a brief sponsor message, followed by a discussion with two executives from Robert Half.

[sponsor message]

Amato: Welcome back, listeners. This is Neil Amato with the JofA. I’m pleased to welcome two guests from Robert Half to the podcast. Kathy Burton is vice president–Global Learning and Development and Steve Saah is executive director–Finance and Accounting Permanent Placement Practice. Steve, you’re a repeat guest. Kathy, you’re a first-time guest. Either way, we welcome you both to the podcast. Thank you for making time to be on.

I’m going to start with Steve. At the end of 2025, a Robert Half survey showed that nearly 4 in 10 employees, 40%, plan to look for a new job in 2026. Is that more than planned to do so in previous years, or inline, or what?

Steve Saah: Well, first of all, thanks for having Kathy and I on, Neil, and we’re sorry we missed you in Denver at the Future Finance Summit. It was, as always, I think a tremendous event, and I’m looking forward to the next one here in my backyard in the Washington, D.C., area later this summer.

Going back to your question, we do these surveys quite regularly. As you mentioned, the one from December did indicate that 38% of employed workers in the U.S. plan to look for a new job in the first half of the year. That is, in fact, up from, I think it was 27% in July of last year and 29% from a year ago. So, the 38% is maybe a little bit elevated, particularly compared to the numbers over the past 12 months.

That said, I think if you look at what the numbers showed heading in to say 2023 or even 2024, when we were at 41% and 49%, respectively, it’s somewhat in line with the numbers from recent years when if you recall, the numbers reflected the peaks of post-pandemic mobility and the tail end of the Great Resignation.

I think at the beginning of 2025, we had a pretty clear pullback, with all the economic uncertainty here in the U.S., which is why the phrase “the big stay” came about. But it’s a new year, companies have new budgets, and in particular small- and medium-size businesses have been running very lean for quite some time. I think the uptick that we’re seeing is to be somewhat expected.

Amato: Thank you for that. Thanks for the Future Finance Summit shoutout. I hated to miss it, but you make the point it was in Denver in December. It’ll be in National Harbor, Md., in August of this year, so looking forward to that. Kathy, given that data that Steve just mentioned, what are some of the ways that employers should be reacting to that 38% of employees saying they plan to look for a new job in 2026?

Kathy Burton: Well, I think retention is going to be first and foremost. I think making sure that you can get your arms around some of your key and critical talent. People are leaving organizations based on better benefits, 45% leaving because of better benefits, 43% more growth opportunity, 42% higher salaries. There’s also some greater flexibility concerns, 39%, and then we also have burnout, 29%. As Steve said, some of these teams have been running so thin for so long that it’s starting to take a toll on the talent that they have. I think making sure that you’re dealing with the retention, understanding what the reality is of your teams, making sure that you’re giving people growth opportunities, mentoring opportunities, ensuring that you’re attending to their needs as well, helping them give some additional opportunities if people have interests to grow in those type of areas. I think it’s really interesting to start to think about what is the current reality of your existing team? How can you hang onto them, and what is it going to be to future-proof your organization with that talent?

Amato: You mentioned that running lean theme for a while. It seems like there’s still that overall mentality. Budgets are not exactly growing, but specifically as it relates to the hiring outlook for accounting roles, I guess, for Steve, what is the trend there?

Saah: Well, Neil, I’d say, from a big-picture perspective, in all the years that I’ve been in this business, somewhat irrespective of the economy, the demand for accounting and financial professionals has really remained very strong. Some years obviously more so than others, but I think you have to differentiate between maybe what you hear on the nightly news and the overall unemployment rates and large companies making large layoffs versus specialty areas such as accounting, where the effective unemployment rate is typically less than 2% in just about every market across the country. That said, as we enter the first couple of months of 2026, I think the labor market remains tight. But many organizations are still moving forward with their hiring plans.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s a new year. That often means new budgets, new projects, and new outlook, etc. As we record this, we just released our updated Demand for Skilled Talent report, which you can download on our site at roberthalf.com, and I’d highly recommend everybody taking a look at that as it’s just chock full of insights and data on a lot of big-picture workforce trends that help you really navigate today’s complex and ever-changing talent landscape. But our surveys found that 83% of accounting and finance leaders feel confident about their overall business outlook for this year. Many are planning to increase permanent headcount in the first half of the year, along with supplementing what their own staff is capable of by using contract or temporary hiring to fill those skill gaps and help with big-picture projects.

At the same time, though, and I think to me, this is very key, nearly two-thirds of hiring managers in accounting say it’s much more challenging to find skilled professionals than it was a year ago. If you think about those two dynamics, you’ve got this tension between companies that are wanting to hire, and yet we still have a somewhat limited candidate pool with specialized skills such as accounting, and that results in competition being remained at elevated levels. I don’t really see that changing. Yes, accountants are still very much in high demand.

Amato: With those numbers you just offered, I would say that definitely is the case, that there is a demand for their services. Beyond the hiring trends, what would you say are the top workplace trends for the coming year?

Saah: Well, again, maybe big picture, I’d say, while it remains a very competitive landscape for accounting professionals and top talent in general across many different industries, I think many employers are going to most likely remain pretty selective in their hiring approach and really focus on critical roles and strategic priorities that can help move their business forward instead of hiring at scale with broad-based expansions. For example, going back to the survey that we talked about in the beginning, we saw that only 6% of leaders indicated that they have the necessary capabilities within their current team to accomplish all of their projects this year, and 57% said they need to upskill their current team members. That’s got to lead to more hiring for key roles.

Again, as I mentioned a moment ago, really supplementing their current teams with the use of contractors. I see that trend continuing. I think some of the biggest shortfalls that we’re often hearing about and where skills gaps are probably the most evident are in areas around financial planning and analysis, certainly all things AI and AI literacy and automation tools. Data analytics is another area where we often hear about a big skill gap. I’d certainly expect the demand and the competition for top talent in these areas to continue to increase for accounting professionals with those types of specialized skills.

Kathy, is there anything that you maybe add to what I said from a big-picture trends perspective?

Burton: No, I just think that a lot of the times the organizations tend to focus on skillsets that are maybe what I would call a diminishing skillset and paying attention to what an emerging skillset is. You mentioned AI, and you mentioned a lot of technology. Those will be continuing emerging skillsets that I think organizations need to pay attention to as far as what’s going to future-proof their organization.

Saah: The other thing that I would add to that, Neil, touching on what Kathy just mentioned is, the importance of thinking about programmatic things to continually upskill and reskill your talent. That goes back to what Kathy said toward the opening about the ability to retain top talent and keep all that institutional knowledge within your organization. If you don’t provide that for people, they’ll find those opportunities to go out and continue to develop themselves with other organizations.

Amato: Definitely upskilling, reskilling, it’s a big trend in a lot of places. I appreciate those mentions. Also mentioning when we are recording, Steve said at this recording, we are speaking in the second half of February, aiming to air this episode by the end of February 2026. Kathy, regarding hiring for leadership roles, what are the positives and negatives of employers promoting from within? Also what is the trend? Are they promoting more from within, less from within?

Burton: There’s a lot of pros and cons to this approach. One of the pros of hiring or promoting from within is continuity. They’re the known entity. They also know the culture, they know the players, they know the business and the industry. The other thing is when you introduce change to anything or any team, it’s a disruption. Promoting within, you have continuity for the team. The team it’s a known entity. There’s a reassurance there from a familiarity perspective.

Some of the negatives with hiring outside is that it could take longer for them to come up to speed, they may not necessarily know the culture, they may not know the organization or the player. There’s an additional runway needed for people to come on board in that sense. The other thing is, is that you may also get into a situation where you hire someone in from the outside into a role that some internal candidates interviewed for.

Then now you have this peer-to-peer competition or maybe a lack of interest for collaboration. You really do need to consider, do you have the skill in-house and can you develop that? Can you upskill them? Or do you really need to deploy a buy strategy, which is going externally and bringing someone in from the outside? Having that said, I think just going in eyes wide open and knowing exactly what you’re going to get from a pros-and-cons perspective there really helps.

Amato: I think that’s a really good point, just calling out that dynamic when someone internal does apply for something, someone external gets it, how you move forward. One kind of similar dynamic is how a newly promoted leader — I guess from inside because “promoted” — how that newly promoted leader navigates suddenly being in charge of people, they at least considered peers, if not close friends previously. How does that work?

Burton: I always call it a recontracting of the relationship in the sense of knowing what will shift in a relationship, knowing what the expectations are going to be moving forward while also honoring the relationship that they’ve built. Because there’s a foundation of trust, respect, and credibility there that will continue to serve that relationship moving forward. I just think recognizing that peer-to-boss transition is not easy for anyone. I think as long as you’re being intentional, respectful, and clear, transparent around what some of those expectations are, then I think an opportunity for one ends up being an opportunity for all. I think if you keep that mindset, it really does help.

Amato: I think we’ve hit on a lot of great topics today. We’ve gotten some of those personal leadership dynamics, workplace trends, hiring trends. What else would each of you like to say in closing? Steve, I’ll start with you.

Saah: Sure. I’d go back to maybe something Kathy touched on a moment ago, and she mentioned it very briefly. But I think the whole concept of building versus buying and that dynamic that’s at play within your organization. Meaning, do you have a talent internally to build out the team and have the necessary skills that your organization requires both really for today and frankly for the future versus going outside of the four walls of your organization to buy talent to supplement what your current team has. I think that has to be something that you’re continually thinking about and frankly, looking at both as ways to meet today’s current needs and then think about where you want the team to be in the future, as well. That’s something that you really want to perpetually keep on the forefront of your mind.

Burton: I think what my closing comments would be around encouraging the organizations to keep an eye to the future. I think I see a lot of times people look to put individuals in roles or promote or even upskill given what may have been historically critical skillsets. I think keeping an eye to the future, recognizing what the emerging skillsets or trends are that are going to be required for people to be successful and to future-proof your organization. And to recognize who has a learner’s mindset, who has that courageous curiosity to continue to want to learn and not be intimidated by the AI and not be intimidated by the technology, but who has that natural desire to learn and to grow. Because those are going to be the ones that are going to close that skill gap much quicker naturally and continue to have that be a growth element for them throughout their careers.

Saah: Well said, Kathy.

Amato: Steve took the words right out of my mouth. “Courageous curiosity” is going to stick with me as one of the themes from this conversation. Kathy Burton, Steve Saah, thanks for being on the Journal of Accountancy podcast.