Hiring best practices: How to succeed in a competitive labor market

What’s the future of fully in-office work? What’s the hiring outlook for finance and accounting roles in 2025? Steve Saah, the executive director of the finance and accounting permanent placement practice at Robert Half, tackles those and other questions in this episode of the Journal of Accountancy podcast, recorded in December in San Diego.

Saah discusses how companies have to walk a fine line when it comes to requiring in-office minimum hours or days – and how that tightrope can affect the pay they offer new employees.

The episode is the first of 2025 and the second from the Future of Finance Summit. In the first summit-focused episode, four CPA leaders looked back on what they learned and ahead to their expectations for 2025.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Saah’s assessment of the future of fully in-office work.
• The tie-in between required time in an office and recruiting new hires.
• How the amount of time agreed upon to spend in the office could affect a new hire’s pay.
• Is the annual employee review a thing of the past?
• The hiring outlook for finance and accounting professionals and the in-demand skills for those roles.

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: At the Future of Finance Summit in San Diego, this is Neil Amato with the Journal of Accountancy podcast. Welcome back to another episode, and thanks for being a listener. I’m joined for this episode by Steve Saah, executive director of the finance and accounting permanent placement practice at Robert Half. Steve, you’re a repeat guest, so welcome back to the JofA podcast. We’re glad to have you.

Steve Saah: Thanks for having me, Neil. It’s been a great week so far, and I’m looking forward to having this discussion with you.

Amato: That’s great. The feeling is mutual. Robert Half is the exclusive talent solutions partner at the 2024 Future of Finance Summit. We’re going to get into some of that talent-related content in this conversation. Steve, when we talked a year ago, I asked about the future of remote work. On that same topic, but asked a slightly different way, what’s the future of fully in-office work?

Saah: Well, that’s a loaded question, Neil, because I think it is without question, a moving target, and it’s continually evolving. I do think for the foreseeable future, it’s going to continue. There’s been several notable companies, including Amazon, Dell, a number of others, that have a return-to-the-office policy, and they cited the need for people to connect more with one another, collaborate, learn together, help maintain the corporate culture, etc.

While I think it’s safe to say that none of us know how many other organizations are going to follow that, I do believe that it’s fair to say that more companies are probably starting to require more employees to come into the office a bit more often. That doesn’t mean 9-to-5, five days a week, but again, as I said, more companies requiring more people to come into the office a bit more often. I think that that dynamic is going to continue to really just ebb and flow as organizations and people need to strike that right balance between the extremes.

I would also add that that’s not just limited to where people work, but really when they work as well. Concepts such as flexible work schedules, windowed work, those are all also part of the conversation and probably will be for quite some time.

Amato: We know employees want flexibility, but how much or even do they want to be in the office?

Saah: I think in general, big picture, I think they do because I believe in my heart of hearts that being able to meet and exchange ideas with people face to face is important, both personally and professionally. It gives you the ability to collaborate, learn together, and it does to some extent help to maintain that corporate culture.

But having said that, I don’t think the majority of people really want to be wedded to a strict schedule where they need to be in the office, again, five days a week, 9 to 5. People want that autonomy, the flexibility, and employers need to recognize that, along with the fact that it’s still an incredibly competitive labor market. Individuals do have a lot of choices in terms of when and where they work, and that’s especially true for accounting and financial professionals, where the unemployment rate is often between 1% and 2% for any given role in any given location. That was one of the topics that we covered in our session yesterday afternoon about the multigenerational workforce.

In addition, we just recently put out our demand for skilled talent report that you can find on our site at roberthalf.com. The latest survey that we have out shows that around 60% of those that are looking are interested in hybrid work environments, and I really don’t see that changing.

Amato: It seems like the companies that really get it, they understand the need for flexibility. If someone says, “Gosh, I’ve got a weekday soccer group that I’d like to join at lunch,” it seems like they’re more understanding of that. I don’t know. Do you think that’s the case?

Saah: I think it’s company specific. There are companies that do, and frankly, there’s companies that don’t. But again, I would just remind everyone, it’s still an incredibly competitive labor market, and the people and organizations that take the time to listen to what individuals need and meet them where they are probably are going to have more success in terms of attracting individuals, successfully hiring them, and in my mind, maybe most importantly, retaining them.

Amato: How has remote work, or the accelerated remote work era we’re in, how has it changed the onboarding process?

Saah: I would say that obviously, with that, a lot more is being done remotely, particularly with email and video communication. There’s a lot of self-directed tasks for everything from setting up your profile online, reviewing and selecting benefits, meeting your colleagues, etc., but more often than not, I think it’s a combination of doing things both in-office and remotely, and it’s particularly important to be in-person as much as possible, particularly on the front end as new employees are trying to establish themselves, build rapport, gain trust with their colleagues, things of that nature.

I’d also maybe say that again, generally speaking, and to the extent possible, remote employees should really have an experience that’s similar to what employees who work in the office would have when they join the company as well. To me, there’s a number of little things that can probably make a pretty big difference, and I’ll give you a few examples; things like having a welcome packet ready to go to that individual, maybe includes company swag, shipping any technology, laptops, etc., before the person starts and providing instructions how they go about getting logged on and initially set up. Having very open and transparent discussions about an individual’s responsibility, especially in those first couple of weeks as they adapt to the new organization. Maybe even having other colleagues that are on the team reach out with welcome notes, posting on LinkedIn.

That really helps the remote staff feel very connected to the organizations and the individuals that they’re going to start working with. Being on video when you’re communicating with those individuals, I think, goes a long way to really establishing a personal connection with them. You can also provide mentors and so forth. But all of those things can make a tremendous difference, especially when a person first starts and is not in the office every day, just feeling welcomed and part of the team, and those things are all things that I think need to be well planned and very intentional.

Amato: We’ve touched on it, but what role does the discussion of those in-office work minimums play in how organizations recruit, or in the pay they offer?

Saah: Well, as you touched on, Neil, compensation is just always a critical factor, and so it’s really tricky in today’s labor market as I think more people are weighing the pros and cons of more pay and benefits against things such as hybrid work arrangements, flexible schedules, windowed work, etc. Maybe I’ll share a few stats from a survey that we conducted [in 2024] with hiring managers where almost half of the managers that we surveyed indicated that they plan to expand their teams and hire both for new and recently vacated positions. But here’s what’s really interesting: 85% of them said that they face challenges in simply finding candidates in today’s environment. The flip side of that is what I mentioned earlier. You’ve got 85% of the managers indicating that they face challenges, yet 60% of those looking for new roles are seeking hybrid work arrangements.

You have to think about how do you bridge that gap between the two, and your initial question, if I remember correctly, was about, how does that impact pay? Here’s two more interesting stats for you to consider. Again, this comes from the same survey that we did, and for jobs that could be done remotely, 65% of the managers indicated that they’re willing to increase starting salaries for new hires to actually work in the office. And of those, 55% were offering up to 20% more for workers coming in four to five days a week. It’s really a tough dynamic to strike that perfect balance for everyone.

But to me, the important thing is realizing that one size doesn’t fit all. You have to remember that each individual is a unique employee in a unique situation in both their personal and professional lives. The key is really engaging one-on-one with them and to the extent you can determining what’s important to them and then crafting an offer that meets those expectations. Pay is one very important part of it in a big equation, but all else being equal, you may have to be a little bit more competitive from a compensation perspective if you are going to require people to be in the office.

Amato: There’s a lot of things that play in this whole thing.

Saah: That’s very true and it’s an ever-changing dynamic as well.

Amato: Thinking about the workers, maybe they already have, how can organizations do a better job, I guess, at being attuned to the needs and preferences of their workforces? Things that may be generational without making too many assumptions just because of someone’s age, such as, “Well, those younger workers are digital natives. They don’t need training. They don’t need a laptop start-up guide. They’re digital natives.”

Saah: This was a big part of what we discussed yesterday in the presentation where I shared the data from our multigenerational report about three broad topics, what influences people’s job satisfaction, what are the deal breakers for those looking for new roles, and what motivates people. To me, the big takeaway from that conversation, and I mentioned a moment ago, was one size doesn’t fit all.

Chris Dyer mentioned in his presentation about the pillars of corporate culture, which is just slightly different verbiage, and that was when he said, “One size fits one.” I’d simply just reiterate that we all have to understand and appreciate that each person is a unique individual with unique needs and desires and organizations that understand that and really can adapt to a person’s personal circumstances will, without question, generally do better when it comes to attracting, successfully hiring, and certainly retaining top talent.

But big picture to your question, you can’t just put people in these broad buckets because they were born in a certain year or are part of Gen X or the Millennials. It has to be looking at their unique situations.

Amato: There’s understanding those possibly generational differences, but what about understanding what motivates their workers?

Saah: Very similarly, Neil, I think the most important thing is to just sit down with each individual on a very regular basis, have open, transparent conversations with them about not only their current roles, but really what motivates them and what they aspire to do. That type of conversation can certainly go in a lot of different directions, but understanding where a person is today, where they’re headed, and where they ultimately want to be goes an awful long way towards creating that type of positive environment and culture where people love being and they really want to stay.

A few of the things that we consistently hear that are important to people in terms of motivation really across all generations are having good relationships with their colleagues. Again, we talked about flexibility in terms of when and where they work and having a good relationship and a lot of guidance from your manager. The other point that I would make very quickly is, I think the days of an “annual performance review” are long gone. You absolutely need to talk to individuals on your team much more frequently, I think, both formally as well as informally.

Amato: I think that’s a good point. You don’t hear as much about the, “Oh, I’m gearing up for my annual review.” I feel like it is changing. It’s probably just anecdotal and in my world, but it does seem to make sense that there should be more regular check-ins, as you say, both the formal and informal.

Saah: Definitely.

Amato: In your answers, in the things where you’ve heard from people, it’s from your data and from just what you do in your job. But also, one thing Robert Half does is it regularly puts out a salary guide and hiring outlook. Everyone loves to hear about salaries and hiring, so for the finance professional seeking a job in 2025, what’s the forecast?

Saah: Well, as you mentioned, we did just recently put out our new salary guide for 2025. Without question, it remains an extremely competitive market, particularly in finance and accounting and certainly for the audience here this week at the Future of Finance Summit, which I have to say has been phenomenal. To me, what that means is if you’re looking for a new opportunity, there’s probably a lot of options for you. If you’re trying to hire, it’s an incredibly competitive market with many organizations indicating that their No. 1 challenge is just finding highly skilled candidates fast enough.

What we’re generally hearing from our clients is that while things like digital transformation projects are ramping up, it’s again a huge challenge just finding those folks fast enough, and then when you do, meeting their expectations in terms of compensation is also challenging as they oftentimes have a lot of competing offers.

I think clearly some of the most in-demand technical skills are things around ERP systems, cybersecurity, again, digital transformation, certainly all things AI, and speaking of AI, we’re actually starting to see some new functional roles appearing in the market, things such as AI financial analysts, AI auditors, AI compliance analysts.

All of these are roles where companies are looking for individuals to use AI to evaluate data, predict market trends, detect better anomalies, identify risks, monitor very vast volumes of data, and so it just goes a long way to helping these organizations make better, informed decisions. Overall, I think it’s an incredibly exciting time to be in the accounting and finance space, and while it’s ever evolving, there’s no question that there are a ton of opportunities for people to collaborate, learn, and just continue to grow and advance their careers.

Amato: This has been fun. It’s been insightful. Appreciate you being back on. Steve, anything you’d like to add as a closing thought?

Saah: Well, I just appreciate always having the opportunity to sit down with you, Neil. This week at the Future of Finance Summit has been a phenomenal experience, and I would just encourage anyone who has an opportunity to attend one of these in the future to come. You won’t regret it.

Amato: Thanks again to Steve Saah of Robert Half for his time. We’ll have more interviews from the Future of Finance Summit in the coming weeks. A reminder for listeners as we start 2025: Please follow the show on your favorite podcast app and share it with your friends if you like what you’re hearing.

If you have a suggestion for a future episode, let me know. I can be reached at neil.amato@aicpa-cima.com. Thanks for listening to the JofA podcast.