From Policeman to Business Partner: Using Talent Development to Change the Culture

Case Study : George Weaton, CFO, Real Resources

Historic Challenges

In a post-covid business environment the fast pace of change and the high level of uncertainty in the economy create uneven patterns of growth and contraction. These changes create tremendous pressure on organizations and the performance of their employees. This is on top of another current reality, that moving up the ladder is a premise that no longer exists in many organizations. It’s either growth through an expanded role or lateral position, or, more likely,talent in and talent out.

These seismic demographic changes in the workforce may catch many finance and accounting organizations by surprise. The retirement of the baby boomers and a radically different view of work by a much smaller population of the newest workers, create a potential crisis fueled at two levels- the lack of a trained experienced workforce and an emerging void in leadership.

The Real Resources Story: Talent Development

George Weaton, CFO of Real Resources Communications, saw these changes taking shape, and he decided to tackle them head-on. Through a highly orchestrated initiative, Weaton and his financial leadership team embarked on a plan to create a culture that would fundamentally change the role of the department from “policeman” to that of a highly-sought after business partner.

Wheaton based his quest on several assumptions: “For many years the finance and accounting organization was often viewed as the policeman or roadblock to investments in new business development. This is something that baffled me. I always felt that our job in Finance should be to minimize the roadblocks to allow people across the organization to focus on advancing our business agenda. My leadership team saw the need to separate out financial oversight and compliance from a more strategic requirement, namely, business development. We also saw the challenges of managing four generations of workers, each with different expectations about work. Our goal was to become a partner to the business without any degradation to our corporate compliance and regulatory responsibilities.”

However, Wheaton’s vision went far beyond changing the culture and the image of his organization. His plan was to make Real Resources a place sought after by finance and accounting professionals, to become “an employer of choice.”

For Wheaton, this was not a philosophy. It was serious business. How could his organization attract, develop, and retain talent? How should he position finance as a critical component of the business decision making process for the overall organization? How would he address the reality that as people leave his organization, there are people clamoring to join his organization?

Overcoming Organizational Inertia and Generational Differences

Most organizations fail to overcome the hurdles of short-term thinking and heads down management when it comes to developing talent. When the pressures of cost containment and an economic downturn grip an organization, all too often the response is to fill a vacancy with a specific technical expertise to meet immediate requirements. Talent development sounds good, but in a tough economy, it is hard enough to just find qualified people to get the work done.

Then there are radically different generational perspectives about work. For the those longtime workers and those nearing retirement, managing through the maze of daily duties, even as hectic as they are today, is pretty much business as usual: work hard, stay late, get the job done, sacrifice on the home front, do whatever it takes.

However, the newest generation in the work force have a different view. They are young, talented, and in many ways ever more educated. They share a different perspective about work.

They do not simply want a job. They have a thirst for challenging, rewarding assignments, on-the-job development, opportunities to learn and do something meaningful. Unlike their predecessors, they are less likely to view repetitive work, short term assignments, or working long hours as so-called job requirements.

At one level their expectations buck the previous generations’ notion of work. Yet at another level their expectations pave the way to create a more dynamic culture, one that potentially meshes better with the high change, interconnected, global economic environment. They have the desire yet lack the experience. Herein lies the opportunity. This group wants and needs to be challenged. The mechanism for this is through effective coaching and teaching.

Wheaton realized he had some of pieces in place for the transformation. However, he realized that to become business partners, he had to develop and align critical processes with newly defined roles, responsibilities, and skill sets. Foremost among the new requirements was the acknowledgement that success as a business partner required more than technical competence.

To reach partner status, the organization had to develop additional skills in relationship building and strategic thinking. For Wheaton and his team this meant they would have to overcome the temptation to put the most technically-talented performers into leadership positions. Instead, they would look for those who could use their financial expertise and ability to deliver results to build credibility, increase their visibility in the organization, and develop a broader understanding of Real Resource’s business.

Transforming the Organization through Talent Development

To transform a culture, the changes have to take place at the level of individual, performance–related expectations. The mechanism for getting at this level of specificity and sustaining the change is implementing a talent development culture.

However, an important step that precedes implementation is the need for a dialogue within the organization to nail down its expectations. In this case, Wheaton and his team had to consider:

 What are the acceptable and expected behaviors of a financial business partner?

 It is easy to say “we want to become a partner to the business,” but what does that actually look like?

These questions are best answered by aligning values with the thoughts and actions that define outstanding performance in a given position. While defining roles and responsibilities describes what a job entails, behaviors define how a job is performed successfully.

One of the first tasks Wheaton and his team had to consider were which behaviors best defined the role of business partner. They concluded that management and technical expertise alone, were not enough. They expanded the requirements from two to four categories:

 Knowledge (what the person knows) - technical

 Know-How (what the person knows how to do) - operational

 Attitude (how the person behaves) -composure

 Leadership (including relationship building, integrity, trust, developing and coaching the team, and business acumen)

Using these specific behaviors as rating criteria, Wheaton and his team went about the task of evaluating the current staff. By looking across the entire finance organization, the leadership team evaluated all employees based on consistent sets of criteria needed for the change in culture. This step was important because it set a baseline for both organizational and individual competence. This framework provided a means to aid in recruitment, growth, learning & development, performance management, retention and talent management of Real Resources employees. It also provided role clarity and a benchmark to apply consistent compensation. In terms of the desired culture, it provided clear, consistent, and individualized direction on learning & development opportunities.

With a baseline established, Wheaton had an objective perspective on the level of effort he and his team would need to shift the culture to that of financial business partner. As a result, there were some individuals who were no longer a good fit for the new finance organization and were“asked” and guided to find new opportunities either inside or outside the company.

Leveraging the Recruitment and Selection Process

In studying how organizations transform their culture, Wheaton and his team realized the infusion of new talented along with the coaching and mentorship of the existing top talent would be critical to developing finance leaders of the future and becoming the trusted advisors to their business partners.

Armed with a clear set of competencies/ performance expectations, Wheaton and his team went about the business of implementing a systematic process for recruitment, selection and promotion for new or re-defined roles. The process was structured such that there were selection teams with clearly defined roles and both planning and post-interview responsibilities.

In addition, Wheaton implemented a series of innovative recruiting programs with universities .Real Resources has been very supportive of hiring university business students for work terms through their co-operative programs. It is a great way to feed the funnel and evaluate future talent. In addition, Real Resources works closely with CMA Canada and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants to operate as a training office for their respective programs.

On-boarding

Once on-board in either new or redefined positions, the leadership team went about the task of clarifying the expectations for each individual in terms of critical responsibilities and required behaviors. This was accomplished through employee feedback, discussion and concurrence to management role description profiles, along with conducting assessments utilizing the personal performance and feedback tools. This 360 degree feedback process provided insight for easily identifiable learning and development paths for our employees.

This was the foundation for implementing the new finance and accounting culture - its values, goals, and priorities. The purpose of on-boarding was to immediately set the stage for on-going dialogue about where and how people needed to spend their time in order to build the department’s visibility and credibility with the rest of the organization.

Coaching and Mentoring : The Heart of The Transformation Process

The success or failure of implementing the overall culture change rested with the leadership team. Wheaton knew that the transformation he envisioned would change the role of his team as well as how each executive spent his/her time. Wheaton stated, “Our responsibility as a team is to attract, develop, retain and coach our talent in order to take on more business development responsibilities. This is radically different than purely monitoring compliance requirements and financial oversight. As a result, I expected each senior leader to model what was expected of others and to spend more time coaching our staff, spending quality time with each individual, looking at how we stay in front of the demands of our key stakeholders , to give them the right financial information and strategic consultation to run their business units more effectively and open the doors of opportunity for the organization.

If successful, Wheaton's team could accrue three major benefits from on-going coaching:

 Development of individual technical and leadership skills

 Enhancement of the overall capabilities of the finance organization, e.g., to expand their core competencies

 Measurable improvements in the business units based on better financial management and strategic consultation.

There was also a fourth benefit to coaching, one that may not have been fully understood or intended initially. By engaging their staffs in meaningful discussions about how to work as business partners, senior leaders created an environment for professional development which often drives higher retention rates. How so? At the core of these discussions are often profound objective lessons and key learning experiences that individuals often describe when asked to discuss their best job experience or most respected leader. This speaks volumes about how to become an employer of choice.

Retention

Unfortunately for many organizations retention is synonymous with crisis. A critical employee announces she is leaving the organization for a better job (or more likely to get away from the boss). Now the powers that be are huddled behind closed doors, trying to figure out how to keep this individual on board. In many cases it is too little, too late.

Wheaton, however, had a different view. He understands that the days of one life, one job are over ,and there will often be scenarios in which his organization and team invest time, energy and resources in an individual and they leave to pursue other opportunities. The difference is one of mindset. He believes that retention is intimately tied to on-going coaching and development. Rather than focus on what to do when someone leaves the organization, Wheaton asserts it is better to do everything possible to enhance their talent and their pathway to success such that he and his team can retain them within the organization. And the organization that he defines is the business, Real Resources, not simply finance and accounting.

Separation

At some point, talented individuals will leave the organization. The key is to manage the process as much as you possibly can. While some individuals leave for proverbial “greener pastures,” many workers leave for “other” reasons. Wheaton’s view, while accepting the reality of the situation, is upbeat . By focusing on the overall talent management process, he feels the separation of an employee should be for all the right reasons, that the individual and the organization have gained from the experience, and that you have not burned any bridges to allow those talented workers to return in the future.

Conclusion

Ask George Wheaton about how his organization is doing, and he will tell you with a straight face, “We are the victims of our own success. At one time we were thought of as policemen and as such the organization looked for ways to work around or without us. Today, the business units insist that we work with them as strategic advisors and business partners. It means that we are working harder than ever to meet higher expectations for performance and higher demands for our involvement with the business. We have to keep up and preferably out aheadour partners to help them succeed.” This sounds like the type of problem that more finance and accounting organizations would gladly like to have.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What needs to be in place to engage in this type of initiative?

2. What steps did Wheaton take that you think had the biggest impact and why?

3. What is the role of leadership in this process?

4. What do you see as the biggest vulnerability for implementation? For ongoing

sustainability?

5. What would make implementing a talent development culture worth it for your

organization?

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