Finance and HR – the new power couple at the heart of successful companies?
2022-05-11
In the past finance was perhaps seen as one of the most significant drivers of the direction of a company and financial results will always remain one of the most important benchmarks for companies.
But the pandemic has accelerated change for a lot of companies, from disrupted supply chains through to changing consumer demand. One of the most critical changes has been in the people side of a company.
We’ve seen changes to working patterns and how companies operate that would normally be spread over decades. This has been coupled with a trend in society to become more people centric and embrace the fact that people are a company’s greatest asset.
Responding to these fast-developing issues has seen the finance & HR relationship become a driving force for change. The new power couple in the board rooms of companies.
Companies who have the finance and HR relationship working well have been able to respond quickly to the fast-developing issues in a meaningful way, from flexible working, through to the great resignation, and war for talent.
To get this power couple working well together we see that 3 key elements need to be in place.
Number one, data. Finance has always been about numbers, and they are great at working with them. The other parts of companies are catching up, from marketing through to HR they are digitizing the other core processes of the business.
For finance and HR, it is about securing data on one of the biggest and most variable spends on the P&L. What the company spends on its people costs, its payroll, rewards, and benefits. For big multinationals this can often be locked away in regional payroll and benefit solutions. Pulling the data together to support better decision making is key.
Finance and HR data can’t be in silos. And the answer to break down the silos is all too often spreadsheets and emails. The modern decision-making process can’t wait weeks or days for data to be pulled together and then emailed to someone. So having this as digital, cloud-based data source for finance & HR to collaborate around is essential.
Number two, agility. As I mentioned, the environment that companies operate in demands fast decision making. HR & finance need to be able to look at the data and ask questions about it.
The feedback loop is also an element in delivering agility. Feedback is enabled by being able to model out decisions and see the effect. For this you need to have a detailed & granular model of your total rewards. There is also the feedback loop from the real world, ensuring you are connected to your people to see the feedback on your decisions around reward.
Number three, engage together in the process. When you bring the data and the decision making (agility) together on the process (bonus cycle, flexible working decisions, pay equity reviews, job changes) you enable the HR and finance to become the power couple.
With the supporting data and models, HR and finance can help guide companies through these rapid changes. If you want to discuss how uFlexReward can help these areas, we would be happy to talk it through with you.
Rob Douglas
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