ACT How will Corporate Treasury recover after COVID 19?

Hello and welcome back to this session on treasury talent in a world of accelerated transformation. So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce my panelists, if I can. Move on to Mike now, please.

Hello, everyone. As Josh said from around the world, my name is Mike Richards. I run the treasury recruitment company. We place a lot of the people that you see before you and you've seen over the past few days into treasury roles. We've been going over 20 years placing from Treasury Assistant to Global Treasurer. So I hope we've got a good view this afternoon about treasury transformation and some of the talent issues that are facing people in the current Covid times. In addition to that, over on a weekly podcast where I interview treasurers about their treasury careers, about how they've developed and grown. So look out for that and looking forward to talking talent issues this afternoon.

So my question to the panel is really, how do you see transformation in treasury and finance and what can we expect from the new treasury kind of arising from the ashes of COVID 19 like a phoenix, new and fresh, so to speak. We'll move over to Mike then. Now, from a recruiter's perspective, what are your thoughts?

I think actually to reflect a little bit on what Jayesh said and then come on to tremulous things. I think if we go pre Covid and before this all happened, the world had already changed and already was changing, if you like, and that was the sort of balance between employers and employees expectations, you know, below 35, you know, I'm post 35. I know you'd be surprised that Jayesh as well in particular. But, you know, when I first started in the world of work, I was grateful for a job and that, you know, and they paid me and I went did my job and I went home. You know, I did this talk in Brussels at one of the conferences and we were Talking about my 16 year old daughter who just was asked a question and she at the time, she's a few years older, but she said, you know, she was getting a job as a waitress and she was saying, you know, what else are they going to give me? I said, what do you mean? They said, well, what are the other benefits are they going to give me? Hang on, you're going to serve tables, they're going to give you money and then you'll take your tips maybe. And yeah, but do we get pension? Do we get benefits? And I think that's the big difference, the actual flip round, if you like, of employee, employer and employee expectations. And I'm not saying it's wrong. I think it's actually right. And there's a much better balance. I've written about it before in some of the blogs where one of them was, I entitled it. It's not about you anymore. It's about them. And when we particularly focus in on recruitment, for example, one of my clients in the US they used to try and recruit and they used to say, oh, well, we're going to give them a big case study to do and they're going to do this. I mean, why? They're not going to. Literally, they were struggling. I said, have a coffee with them. Get these guys in the office to be interested in your job. The same with Treasury. You know, I'm trying to do that with some of our treasury clients now and saying, you need to get these people interested in your job. Even if they're applying for it. It's not like they apply. All right, well, let's interview them. Well, yeah, now you need to explain why they're gonna have a career with you. Where are they gonna go in the next five to 10 years? What are you gonna do for them? And that's right, as it were. I think as we come into then Traman's mentioning about COVID and everything else. I think it is a temporary bubble, if you like. If that's, you know, clients, if you like, will be inundated with candidates. They'll be, like, trying to make a move because it's sort of a logjam of the market, as it were, that's going to ease, you know, come September, October. I've not seen that 80% of people want to work from home. I have seen a difference in working patterns. You know, I've got some clients who are saying they are going to be completely flexible working. But, you know, some of the. Again, Jayesh mentioned about up to 35. A lot of the guys, when I'm talking to you, they. They need to go and see their bosses. You know, they want to, you know, treasury, if you like, is quite a social experience as well as anything else. It's not just numbers. And if you're a Treasury analyst and you're stuck on a problem, you're not going to look around the room and say, oh, you know, and you're stuck on it. And, you know, you're going to want to turn to your boss and your boss at the moment isn't a brick wall, and you're going to be, hang on, I want some interaction or I want some coaching. So I think there will be a balance And I've heard much more about people talking about maybe Tuesday, Wednesday, working in the office, maybe Thursdays, blending it with working from home on Mondays and Fridays and, you know, doing it, a different way of doing it. That's where I'm seeing a sort of a change, you know, probably the best way change in working.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting. I mean, there's a Gartner study on what people are saying about returning to work. There's so many different studies, aren't there? And we are hearing from our, you know, large group treasurers that one of their main concerns is the younger members of their team, as in the other new members of their team, missing out on that being together. But we do have some tips in one of our other sessions, prerecorded sessions, the virtual handshake on how to deal in that kind of scenario. But, Micah, you mentioned your blogs. Then where would our audience find your.

Blogs if they wanted anywhere? On our website, treasuryrecruitment.com and again, we'll come on to some of the other bits which relate to this. I've got so much from talking to treasurers every week. We've done 110 podcasts now every week a different treasurer. And some of them talk about, you know, topics like this, about the employee experience, but some of them talk much more about, you know, the IT aspects, and some of them talk about different things and what I have discovered, you know, I've loved talking to treasurers for 20 years, but everything, you know, JS for instance, he has the title of assistant treasurer or deputy or whatever, you know, and you talk to five different treasurers and they all have the same title and they'll say, oh, you do the same job in the same way, in the same. And they obviously don't. It's fascinating how the diversity and the breadth of it, it's mad. It's absolutely great.