Despite the mass layoffs that have taken place this year, unemployment is still near historically low levels, and demand for talented finance professionals remains high. In fact, according to a December 2022 report by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, layoffs and discharges decreased in finance and insurance (-43,000) while they increased in other sectors like the federal government (+4,000).
In other words, the talent crunch hasn’t eased, which means you need a proactive plan.
One of the biggest hurdles for finance leaders identified in our report, Finance Trends: How Finance Leaders Can Thrive during a Recession in 2023, was navigating market, talent, and process challenges. The report found that leaders are turning to automation to help relieve talent pressures due to the direct impact on employee recruitment, retention, and satisfaction.
One popular way to use automation is to identify and eliminate menial tasks like spreadsheet data entry or receipt capture. By finding ways to minimize the amounts of manual tasks employees are responsible for, organizations provide more meaningful work to employees — which translates to higher retention rates, employee engagement, and productivity.
A recent study cited by Inc. demonstrated that burnout, a leading cause of turnover, can happen when people feel overworked or burdened by menial tasks. In general, this sense of burnout has worsened – 23.4 percent of respondents in the study think workload has increased directly due to the Great Resignation.
The analysis showed that workers who have to play “catch-up” because of the lack of automated tasks are more stressed than their counterparts who have automation baked into their processes. Only 53.5 percent of employees' weekly planned tasks are completed, and 10.8 percent of their workweek is spent recovering and catching up after reprioritizing work. Finance teams who automate tools improve their output by eliminating manual work and lowering burnout rates.
The Emburse report found that finance leaders are strongly leaning on automation to remove menial tasks, retain their top talent and attract new employees :
- Jobseekers want more responsibility. After basics like hours, compensation, and benefits, “step up in responsibility” was ranked the most valued attribute in a new job.
- 37% of leaders plan to redistribute workloads this year to combat talent challenges and reduced budgets.
- Retention is a crucial driver of automation — improving employee experience (35%) ranked just below overall business performance (38%) as a reason for automating.
Download the full report now to learn more about how automation can help your recruitment and retention strategy succeed.