Mike Richards Reveals the Latest Treasury Career Trends on The Treasury Update Podcast

Foreign.

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner.

Podcast, where actually this week we've got.

A bit of a change. I'm being interviewed, me, Mike Richards, the host of the Treasury Career Corner. I'm actually getting interviewed by Craig Jeffrey from Strategic Treasurer. He has his own podcast, the Treasury Update podcast, which is a very good podcast. I'd head you over there. Don't leave us. But anyway, Craig's a great friend and.

What he wanted to do was talk about, well, what the.

Exploring the rebounds from the depths of this Covid crisis. What's happening with Treasury Careers? Does geography matter? A number of other things we explore in the show. We talk about what's changing in the working from home environment, mentoring, etc, etc, you know, coaching. If you're on Zoom, are you an introvert or extrovert? So we explore that a little bit. We also talk about treasurysalary.com which you should all have taken part in our treasury salary. Please go over there. Takes you two minutes. Gives you a really great objective salary survey you get from last year's one, which is 80 plus pages. We're going to cut it down this year, make it a bit more digestible. So we're just working on that over the summer as well. And also he wants to sort of know about any ongoing trends, how we're recovering and everything else. So it's really great show, really enjoyed it. A bit weird being the other side of the microphone, but anyway, as I say each week, that's enough from me and it's over to me. Well, me and Craig, but mostly me. All right, speak to you guys soon and looking forward to, yeah, catching up.

With lots of people in September. All right, see you soon, Mike.

Welcome back to the Treasury Update podcast, Craig.

Delighted to be back and as we said, and we've said a few times, it's quite weird to be this side of the microphone and you asking me questions. I've got used to it now, 100 plus podcasts myself, just like yourself. It's. It's great fun when we're grilling our guests, getting to know them and everything else, but when it's the other way, I'm just like, oh, me? What? You're asking me a question. Hang on, buddy, it's my turn. But no, I will. I'll try my best and tell. Well, try and give some advice to people in this weird, weird world that we live in nowadays. So, yeah. Well, back to you, Craig, this is your show.

So there's several different areas that I wanted to talk about that I was really interested in. One is about treasury positions. You know, we're in this rebound from the depths of the COVID 19 economic impact. And I say that because one of the major banks, chief economists, talked about, you know, how we're already in recovery from the sharpest, deepest, fastest recession, but as we rebound from it, what. What are you seeing that's going on career wise? And I know we talked a little bit earlier, you said there's some differences by region. So what, what are you seeing and.

Are things changing there in general terms, career wise? This is what the listeners today, this is what treasury professionals, I think, were born to do. It might sound like an ending closing statement, but it's more, you guys out there, you're planning for this, you're getting ready for financial crises, you've got to focus on liquidity, risk management and everything else. And that was really something that sort of jumped out at me that I thought, do you know what? This is what you guys were born to do. And you've been doing it in different places and as you say, it's been different in different areas. As Craig mentioned earlier, we cover the globe and we recruit predominantly uk, Europe and the us and each of the regions has been different. I think the pace of COVID if you like, has been. And the reaction within different countries has been different, which has then had a slightly different effect, some commonalities, but different effects with different people in different treasury teams and treasury departments.

So is like, if you take the U.K. for example, is it different, you know, in general, or is it by specific industries or what are you saying? Let's start in the UK here, your.

Home base, basically, people were continuing to recruit right up until lockdown. And then lockdown came. Everyone said, right, work from home, you're not coming to the office for six months. I mean, I made the joke that any other year, that beginning of April, you said to someone, oh, by the way, you're going to work from home for the rest of the year, blah, blah, blah. Oh, yeah, nice April Fools. And they're like, no, this is what's happening. Whilst it was previously seen as a benefit, people working from home, now a new norm, in some ways that people are doing that. And I think there's had a positive effect in some ways that people have been seen to sort of perform very well in certain situations, I think there is a negative effect. And, you know, certainly from talking to some of the UK operational level staff, you know, very much ops people have said about the use of technology and stuff like this, it's less about that. It's more the interaction. You know, people have said about, oh, but we have a zoom call where we have a beer every Friday with all of the team and stuff like that. That's all right, but that's not sitting across a table and looking the person in the eyes. If a Treasury analyst has a problem, you know, they go, oh, who do I look to? Hang on. Oh, they look to their right and there's a brick wall, same to the left. Oh, how do I call? You know, do I call my boss? Do I call my boss's boss? I think it's still. That working from home piece still has to be worked out, I think, as we return. And that's what I'm seeing. And a lot of the talk is about coming back in September. And as everyone returns post vacation season, I think it will improve, but I think it's a bit more of a balance. I think certainly from the conversations I've had, one of the things I've picked up is a lot of people will do maybe the working from home across the weekend. So the Friday and Monday, they'll be at home Tuesday, Wednesday in the office, you know, getting to, you know, see people getting together. Some of the meetings still socially distance, using sanitizer, doing all that stuff, face masks if need be. But then also maybe the Thursdays, a bit more of the focus day, as I do every week, and that's meeting clients, meeting candidates. So it's sort of a new kind of. It's a new norm, It's a new balance, really.

I mean, that's an interesting perspective on how it's going to change when we come back. It might be more remote. You mentioned the, hey, I'm looking at the walls, whether it's brick or Sheetrock or what have you. This, I don't know if you want to call it socialization, but the face to face, the ability to have these casual conversations, you know, the broader conversations that people pick up on, leading to discussions, don't happen unless. Unless we're intentional. So how's this impacting things like mentoring, development, work on teams and projects? What's falling apart in the work from home or what's the negative side of that?

Well, I think you nailed it there a little bit. It's not falling apart yet, but some of this, before Pre Covid, everything else, I'd be talking to treasurers, they'd be talking about how they were great technical treasury specialists and everything else. And then as we dug into it, people got more senior. We were Talking a lot more with them. And I do still talk to them about how they're more in charge of their teams and there's much more communication going on. They were technical specialists as treasury managers, now the communication specialist, coaching and mentoring treasury teams. I said, great, what training have you had on that? And they said, what? And I said, oh, so you're acting as a mentor. Has someone sort of mentored you in the past, shown you how to do that with maybe your softer skills or your coaching or communication skills? And, you know, if it's a video call, this sort of. I get a blank face. If it's a call like this, there's a sort of long pause and I think I, you know, pre Covid people weren't, you know, guys in treasury weren't getting this. This coaching and I think actually they're learning on the job now. I think a number of employers need to review this because they are stuck, if you like, they're trying to do it. But have they ever received any professional training? And the answer is usually no. I think it's an area where guys in treasury are doing well because they are people that will take a situation and run with it and make the best out of it and everything else. But I think there's a massive opportunity. So, you know, someone out there listening. I said this again on the call with some big treasurers and the head of the UK association of Treasurers. If someone came out with a remote coaching course for treasury professionals, I think it would sell out 10 times over because they're going, oh, you know how to coach. Working from home team members. Da, da, da. It's a massive issue. I think that's, you know, people are getting through it, but how temporary is it? Is it. You know, there are some of our clients, one of the clients actually said that, the treasury team, and they're going to be expected to come into the office once a week right up to Christmas, or sort of post Christmas, rather. So between now and then, they're not even thinking that we're not going to see you. That's five months away. They'll see you over zoom, but not going to see you in person. Really? Yeah. A very different situation than perhaps we've seen before.

As you're talking with people and discussing this, there's the initial everyone. Everyone goes home. They're sheltering in place and they're connecting. They got past the initial tech issues and they're working on the farther down tech issues. On the interaction side, did people take more steps to make sure they're communicating in the beginning. And has that lightened up at all as we've gotten farther or are people being pretty consistent about making sure they're staying in touch with those who are?

It's the latter. I think that there was, I think there was also, you know, had a podcast this morning with a really leading treasurer who they have been absolutely whacked sideways, a food services company. So, you know, there are no food services. You know, nobody's getting on a plane, nobody's going to a school. So their revenues are, you know, through the bottom, but they've raised massive amounts of liquidity and they'll ride out of it. But when I spoke to him about how they were getting on, and this is also comes from other treasurers initially and they were very proud of their teams and things, but I think initially they were just let's cope because no one knew how long it was going to last. It was different to the recession of 2008 because that was an unknown quantity. Everyone chucked every stimulus you could and you just had to sit on your hands and wait. This time people could plan their way out of it, but they were planning throughout it. They didn't know. You can plan for it, but you can't predict to say, oh, it's over. You know, we've got. In Europe, they've got a second lockdown coming in. In Spain, they've got the various other bits. You're still planning for it, but in treasury terms and going back to the individuals planning for it. Right, everyone heads down and then a couple of months in, oh, okay, this is different now. This is, you know, we're not. It wasn't just all cope. This bit again we spoke. I spoke to Sally Ding, treasurer of Heathrow on the this act panel when I spoke to her and we were talking live and she about how much more she's had to do on a personal level with the team, you know, so sitting down, doing more individual one to ones doing more support, not because they need it, but because she feels that they deserve it sort of thing. So it was a more of a giving thing rather than them going, oh, help me, help me. Because she just sensed that and I think it was a really accurate way of doing it. And again from the other treasurers that I've been having on panels and the other treasurers I've been talking to, it's not new to them, but it's more that it's a more form, slightly more formal process that is, it's in the diary, you know, before we just grab a coffee together. Now it's, you can't grab a coffee because you 100 miles separated. You might be. So it's actually. Right, let's sit down, let's do a Skype, let's do a Zoom coffee. And I think the treasurers that have done that are certainly showing greater signs of success, you know, when they're coming out of this as well. And I think they are, a lot of them are coming out with renewed vision for renewed recognition, rather from say the cfo, you know, when I'm talking to them and saying, oh yeah, the CFO's really stepped up. But also said to me, thanks for doing this. You really. And then getting a little bit more FaceTime because you treasurers and treasury professionals at heart of this crisis, really. And getting us through the other side sort of thing.

Yeah, the born for this type of environment. Right. Treasury, treasury is born for turbulence, though we do enjoy the calm times between the storms. But one last item on this. You know how treasury careers and the dimensions of work have changed. We're meeting by teams, meeting by Zoom. How do you see this change in the interaction? I know you do recruiting, so you're, you're on, you're on Zoom or teams all the time. And does this help the introvert, help the extrovert, or is this just an adaptation situation?

I heard a phrase and someone said that all the size of the Zoom windows are the same, no matter what level of seniority you are. Okay. And then the follow up to it was they felt that now the treasury analyst voice was being heard at the same level as a Treasury manager, the same level as a deputy treasurer, same level as a treasurer, because everyone was equal and things like that. Technical phrase, I thought that was baloney. I don't agree with it. I think that actually it will bring to the forefront some of the people that do have something to say. We do regular Zoom calls. As Craig just mentioned there, we got a group Zoom call from our Bounce Back program. And the fact is, you know, I've had a couple of treasurers on there who'd say nothing throughout the call. I've got a couple of treasury managers who really jump in, you know, and, you know, as you say, I think it comes down to that introvert, extrovert, and we have to artificially bring out some of those introverts because they've got some great stuff to tell us and some great feedback and, you know, would that be, is it, is it helped by being on Zoom? Possibly, yes. I think it is because you're able to tease them along, have a more of a planned conversation, if that's the right way. You think, oh, actually, I can bring Jane into this call because you can specifically ask Jane a call. Would you necessarily do that in the, in the break room or in the treasury room, treasury team, where you're based and things like that? Maybe. Sometimes. Not that, you know, that Jane does get, you know, sort of overruled or doesn't really say much in a meeting, but in general terms, I think. I don't see. Not everyone is an extrovert in treasury, but introverts tend to still do very well because of their analytical skills, because of things they can bring to the table and everything else. And it's a. I think treasury is a very balanced discipline where people can actually contribute, whatever their personality type. So, yeah, it is an interesting one. And I, you know, I've seen it myself firsthand from, you know, a lot of these guys on these big zoom calls. And I'm like, come on, join us.

Yeah, it may be that more. More treasury people are introverts, you know, versus being energized by discussions. They're energized by. By data analysis and then do it. Who knows? But some, some great points, Mike, there. I wanted to talk about treasury career velocity or turnover. Is there. What's the job situation look like?

It's pretty, pretty static at the moment, but I think that's static.

Low, low or just paused.

I saw, actually, I think it was from the AFP in the US they did a study where they were saying that 80% of hiring was put on hold. And I was like, wow, I was shocked there was that much hiring going on because I hadn't seen it. It was starting to. Q1 is traditionally quite quiet anyway. And actually there's a good point on this about bonuses and things like that. People were collecting their bonus and then you traditionally see things start to lift up come March. People are saying, right, time for a move before, you know, get into the next cycle, my next bonus and Mike, I want to make a move and everything else. And actually that's just as March, April, boom, everything stopped. And there was still recruitment going on, but it tended to be much more at operational level. We had. We actually had two maternity leave requirements. And as one of the treasurers said, he said, well, she's having those twins whether or not we get someone to replace her. I was like, right. He said, so we've got to replace her. And the person that is doing the job has been Onboarded remotely has never actually met face to face in the same room as the treasurer yet. But they've been recruited and they're onboarded as a senior treasury manager doing a great job and it's fantastic, actually. But that's been the weird thing. We've onboarded two or three other operational staff that are still working remotely and still doing their treasury jobs, whereas normally they'd be through 12 rounds of interviews face to face. And that's not stopped any of the process. What has stopped is that some of the more senior positions have been paused. I think as we start to come into September, I particularly think it is going to pick up because I think it follows more natural terms we're entering into now. We're doing this recording end of July, going into August, this vacation season, people still need are going to take their holiday and take a break. Whether it's more of a staycation doesn't really matter. People are still going to use that come September. October is going to pick up, I think what is different? And Craig, you sort of prompted me. We've got our salary survey which we'll perhaps come onto. But one of the things that when I was doing a lot of the consideration of this, if you look at the level of businesses, so many of them taken massive knockbacks and one of the things here, you know, so you look at aerospace, for instance, retail, you know, no footfall because no people to walk around. The recruitment industry itself, some of the larger recruitment companies have made massive cutbacks. Those are the losers in this situation. Whereas you've got some of the winners might be more utility groups, so gas, electric, food delivery services, technology companies and you know, anyone that was manufacturing webcams is absolutely loving it now. You know, you've got those privately held companies because in the past, sometimes when they're competing as public companies, you know, they're doing well as a big corporate. Everything else, those guys have been absolutely knocked sideways, which has meant that the follow on effect is that people will get their bonus based on the turnover of the PLC or the success profitability of the plc. They're gone, you know, everyone. Oh yeah, my bonuses in the last quarter or first quarter, they're not here, that's not going to be happening this year or they might recover part way. And so that anchor, if you like, to holding them into their employment, that's going, that's disappearing now, that's just, that's off. Which is in itself going to be an interesting one. I think it'll be a more fluid, fluid year for recruitment later on in the year. So yeah, look out. I think it could be, I'm hopeful of a busier time. I think people are getting used to this new norm again and we'll get on from there. Really.

Yeah. And I guess as we look at from a geographical perspective, us, uk, Europe, maybe others, any one of those rebounding faster than the others.

Well, Europe takes a longer vacation throughout the summer, they tend to. But that was actually later into close down. But now is already starting to build up A bit earlier we were quite surprised. We're doing a lot of work actually and if anyone wants to, wants to work in the Middle east, we've got a number of roles and those guys are just carrying on. They're just, you know, I'm recruiting three or four very major positions out there and I'm like, wow, uk it's, it's, it's ticking over. The US has, well, certainly for us we recently we've seen it properly stopped. There was a little bit of a, oh, are we coming back to life for a bit? It's come to a halt. At the moment I'm talking to a number of clients but when I'm talking to them it's the typical situation and what I mean by that, when someone, they're looking to recruit and I said look, if I kick off this campaign, Mike, well, the CFO is going to be away for the next two weeks. Oh okay, fine. And then actually I'm away for a week and oh, okay. So there's that sort of knock on effect that when I'm talking to them they say well actually should we just kick off things in September? And I think that might also help. We do predominantly a lot of work in the east coast around Chicago and things like that. They're very busy areas for us that's starting to show a return to Life, but probably 50% on what it was this time last year. But I think that's an artificial thing. I think it is because when I'm talking to clients they're saying, well actually we're just going to wait till post summer. Everyone will be backing around. You know, California's gone into a second lockdown virtually. You know, I think that's really tough for the guys out there. And people are saying, oh, we're going to recruit in this lockdown. People want to meet people and you know, there's economic things and if people or other people in the team are on vacation, there's an increased workload and you need a full team to be able to Then focus your efforts on the recruitment piece as well. So yeah, I fully expected to get back to more normal levels of recruitment, more fluidity. September through to December, well, September onwards really. I think slow start, October will be flying.

Does the job situation, this activity in hiring and recruiting, does that precede, rebound or let's call it full employment or does it trail?

It usually trails it to be honest. And again, it's funny and I speak for treasury recruitment, I'm treasury specialist. But what I mean is when I talk to some of my friends in other financial recruitment areas, you know, I've started to speak, you know, speak to some of those guys and they're, they're seeing some recovery, they're doing, you know, they're busier than we are and they always will be and they always seem to have done. My rule of thumb is that we usually busier three to six months after some of those guys. And also when there's a downturn and I don't know 100% the facts but when there's a downturn, a lot of the time we're still busy for another three months and then we sort of, then our market catches a cold. Maybe it's just the nature of Treasury. A lot of the people we talk with, low volume, high value. So typically speaking treasury professionals are very highly qualified, know their finance stuff. A lot of the, you know, some of those guys I talk to, they're recruiting at more junior finance recruitment level. So they might have. And also less planned as it were. So when they, they might pick up the phone, a client's doing new projects, they say, right, we want four FP and A guys and we want this and we want that. I don't get a phone call, whichever says, hey, I need four treasurers. You know, I wish I did, it'd be a very great Christmas that time. But you don't get that. You get Mike, our treasurer is going to move on in three months or he's coming to retirement or she is or she might be going off maternity leave. Actually we're going to need someone for a year. It's a much more planned. I'm talking to them now. When's that going to kick off? Oh, November. It's a much more strategic planned changes. A lot of the time that's what happens within Treasury, I think in general.

In terms of working from home and career mobility. You mentioned the Middle east. You've got a number of high level jobs open. Does this, hey, we're living in the work from home environment and that might become the normal environment, it seems. Does this mean that Treasures are going to be working in lots of different locations that might differ from where their company's headquarter is? I know some people have like, hey, I'm moving to the beach or I'm moving someplace else, a couple anecdotes about that. They tended to travel anyway and they just said, I'm going to live where I want. As long as I have high Internet and can get to a major airport, I'm good. Is that going to change where people are working from?

I think it will based on its country. So in the US it's much more practical that you might have someone Midwest doing a lot more exactly as you say there, Craig, with your anecdote that they might have been traveling for work before, they might not have to travel so much now, but it might be one week out Again, when I'm talking to a client just last night actually, and he was talking about that one to two weeks out of four he will go to the headquarters, which is a plane flight away. He'll either do two weeks there and then two weeks back home and it doesn't make that much of a difference for him. Or the actual thing is, as you say, people don't have to be in work all the time. They can zoom. I think there will be greater flexibility working. And it's funny actually my colleague Katie was talking about the European markets and just bring it back to that. She sort of said that working from home isn't alien in Europe, but number of most businesses set up to accommodate this prior to Covid. Yeah, they were. But the actual fact I then made comment, but often it wasn't practical. But actually I think it was also frowned upon. Is it. Oh, is he what? He's at home this week. Is he? Oh, right. Okay. So he's not actually working all the time. Is he's picking up the kids from school or is he walking the dog? No, people were in the home offices probably working sometimes longer hours. And people have said that there's been a lot of longer working a lot of the time. And then, you know, if you didn't travel for an hour and a half, did you then spend that actually getting up at 8:00am or you know, at the desk rather for 8:00am and still there at 8:00pm sometimes. And I think actually there's been a lot of that. But coming back to the geographic question, I think, you know, certainly I've seen that in the uk, I've seen in Europe seen it reflected somewhat in the US I haven't seen it huge amount because I think at the time we were, when we were doing some of our searches, we were, you know, our first search was locally anyway. So if we were looking in New York, there's a massive population of New York treasury professionals, same as Chicago and the same in a couple of other locations. So we were able to look locally. First of all, I think now the gloves are off a little bit. It does mean that, you know, say one of the UK roles that I recruited, my, the treasurer there said, well actually this new working from home, they don't have to come to the office full stop. We would like them to pop in maybe once a month, a month end, just to sort of help with that process. But that could be a, an overnight trip. They come down, do the Tuesday, Wednesday, right, see you in 18 days time. And you know, I think it's actually a new way of working. I think it really opens things up. I know that. I think we talked before Craig about would this also make people more international? Like could someone in the UK do an international role into the US or vice versa? I've actually, you know, when I've spoken to a couple of people and thought it through, I think the time zone differences make a heck of a difference, you know, so it actually makes it quite tough. It's also, as I say, I'm recruiting these roles in Saudi Arabia. The actual time differences do present a real, a real challenge with the U.S. you know, we were having a conference call just the other day. It was 6 o' clock in the morning in the U.S. it was late in the afternoon for Saudi and I was talking to them from London. So it was right in between all that was. There was one peak time slot for all of us but then immediately went the other way. So I think that would be more challenging, as it were.

Yeah, I wanted to shift and bring the last part of the discussion to the salary survey you run continually. You run it every year. I know there's a period where it's particularly emphasized for people taking it and we'll include a link in the podcast notes so people can continue to take that. But I wanted to hear if, you know, if there's anything that you found that represents some sort of dramatic shift or something that's accelerating, decelerating or some new finding that would be, you know, interesting to know.

Yeah, I was, it's funny again, Craig bullied me before this call because you know what it's like listeners, he's, you know, he's a, he's A pushy man. He wants the facts. He's, you know, he's going to make me work for my, for my, my bread and soup.

No free lunch.

No, exactly. Never is with Mr. Jeffrey even. I'd still buy my beer, though. But anyway, that's a different thing. Right. I looked at last year's survey and some of the figures from there, and we recruit well, last year's survey was too big. You know, we had a lot of great amount of information, but overly big. And I wanted to, it was great because we got a great template and we're bringing it down and concentrating more on the facts and figures which people really want to know. In terms of the figures, as Craig very kindly said, you just go to treasurysalary.com, you take part, two minutes. And Craig asked me, when does it stop? It never stops. This is the amazing thing, that every six months we ask people to update their information. Just check. And it continues to roll and grow and grow and grow. And then we can take snapshots as we go and we can see where it was. So I look back at the snapshot of last year and just looking at some of the facts and figures and I was looking at. So currently we have 75% men in the survey, 25% women. We need more ladies. But one of the things I haven't done, which we will do in analysis, is just what levels, you know, are taking part. You know, are all the treasury managers happening to be ladies or, you know, we're going to deep dive in some of that and produce that for some of the people that read it. So this year in the survey, I've noticed that about 2/3 of people are happy and a third are unhappy. And a lot of the time when I deep dive into that, it's about self direction. Whereas last year, in actual fact, overall, and particularly the senior levels, a lot more people were happy. You know, so you're talking up around the 80, 19% mark, sort of, I think was 85% in certain categories. And people say, oh, well, that varies. And it does. So treasury analysts, you're the unhappiest people. So keep on registering, keep calling me. But as you become a treasurer, you're happiest in your career and there's a direct correlation. And when I've interviewed people and found out it's about self direction, it's about actualization. If you're an analyst, you might be told every week what to do by your boss. If you're a treasurer, you might sit with your cfo and say, right, the targets for this year are this and I'll see you in a month. And, you know, it's not just that, that's a blanket phrase, but it's generally, you know, has an effect on your happiness. But actually, again, one of the things that I've seen has changed this year is we're currently running at 76 people. 76% of our survey are considering new opportunities. People were happier or there were less people looking before, similar size at the time. But in actual fact, I think it was down in the sort of 60s, late 60s. It's not too much of a move. But in actual fact, more people are considering the opportunities. Only issue is, are there are none. Yeah, it's static. I was like, let me out. So I think someone said to me the other bit, well, hang on, if there is no bonus, surely people won't look to move? And I said, no, that's not the case. I said, well, everyone like this, everyone's going to look to move whether or not they get in the bonus. Now, whether or not there are jobs there, that's a different story, you know, and that's just down to the markets and things like that. So, yeah, it was interesting, actually, looking at a lot of the figures. And the only other, the real, not the only other, but one of the other stats I always find amazing is when we go through it and we ask people why they're happy, unhappy, why are you looking for a new job? And it's a salary survey and typically you might expect, oh, it's about the money. It's about the money. On a scale of the 10 factors, money usually is number seven, if not eight. Every time that the people that bothered about, it's about, you know, your boss being nice to you. It's about learning things, it's about. It's all the other factors rather than, you know, it's work doesn't make it. I've got poor boss manager, work, life balance, you've got all those. And then, you know, why do people happy, you know, good work, life balance, good boss manager, you know, people are actually people. And it's the other factors. It's not just the paycheck at the end of the month, even though we assess people's paychecks at the end of the month, that's what we do. I find that dichotomy really interesting every time that it's never changed. When I first ever did it 15 years ago, started the salary survey, I thought it was going to say, oh, everyone's annoyed about their money and that's why they're interested. It never was. It's about every other factor and you know, they want to be paid fairly, but the other factors are things that push them or drag them in the door or push them out the door.

You know, your comment about the increased level of unhappiness or decreased level of happiness and the distinction between the levels is interesting. And I'm also wondering, do you capture other demographic information like age or things like that? Do we get happier as we get older in the careers? Are we more impatient earlier, more impatient later?

We capture information such as your man or woman because we're able to measure that and things like that on. I would love to. I mean, I can probably guess most people as ages because I know a lot of that. You know, I know all the participants. We verify them ourselves. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to ask it. Yeah, I'd be in court. You've got ages, sir. No, but it's, no, I've asked about that in the past. It's, it's very tricky. But it's funny, as you say there, I get a lot of feedback on the zoom calls we do the groups and people say, oh, you know, I'm, I'm a 50 year old and you know, I'm not getting the opportunities. What do you advise? And we try and give advice in the situations. But again, a lot of the time I think people do get hung up on age. I, you know, we can make age, you know, a powerful weapon and it can be used for good and evil. But you know, I sort of try and coach people that, yes, there are always going to be some recruiter, some companies recruiting that are ageist.

No, I guess I was thinking, personally, I remember being very impatient early in my career. I wanted new opportunities, new responsibility, like instantly. And you know, it's like, what a week has gone by. Why haven't things happened? And I suspect I've mellowed a bit in that impatience. So that was the source of that. Those are some really great headlines and information. But are there any other trends that you see emerging or, or former trends that have stopped or reversed in this?

Again, it's going to probably, you know, if we get a big surge of people taking part, which would be great in the survey, please do take part. Treasurysalary.com, just got to drop it in there. You know, when I started to compare it year on year and look at some of the salaries, I think there will be, I want to do more analysis. But the trend I'm seeing at the moment is that salaries, salaries have continued to increase, but it's been more of a marginal increase. So again, without doing detailed in depth analysis, but I am seeing people said, oh no, that's it, all salaries have stopped and everything else when people are in the roles they've been in, there has been until now a marginal increase. But bearing in mind Covid has only been here for, you know, in place for four to six months, there will be, I'm going to have some interesting conversations with some of these guys in aerospace, you know, talking to them and you know, talking to the guys in retail because, you know, we've heard and we know of some of our clients have had to take 20% pay cuts for periods of time just to take a real haircut and say, look, you know, if you can't take it, there's the door. And they say, no, we'll take it, thank you very much. But what we've also seen is that the flip side, you know, these delivery, food services, technology, they've been more resilient than this. Is that going to impact on the salaries? The answer is we don't know fully yet. I think we will. You know, again, I'll be not just anecdotally, but trying to deep dive with some of those guys to understand how it has affected them and wanting to know exactly what they've, you know, what they found. I don't know what your, you know, what you've heard from your listeners or some of the guys that you have spoken to. Craig, you know, just to flip it back, a question on my own, but have you heard from some of those, you know, those clients or what the effect has been on their employment sort of thing or.

Yeah, I mean, I think the, I think you described something as a pause or static as that being the case with quite a bit on the salary front. I mean, some organizations furloughs, you know, take a week off a month or take, you've got to take two weeks or 20%, 25% pay cut, a number of those things, especially as people were, you know, you know, taking that fort mentality, we've got to shore up liquidity. How do we stop the outflow while we're seeing how things settle out? So yeah, yeah, it's a time where it's hard to measure in the midst of this. So I think your words were wise and I look forward to seeing more information on your analysis from that. That'll be quite fascinating to see how this may have disrupted.

Well, I started to see it come back, though, as well, that's one of the things, is that I spoke to a client again. Well, this client I spoke to today, he said they'd sort of been prepared to have a cut. They said that we might have to. They didn't in the end. But also couple of other clients I've heard from, one of which said, again, they did take a cut, but actually only lasted a couple of months. And, you know, reduced work, reduced hours, reduced salary. Well, now actually said, oh, yeah, no, things are getting back to normal. All right, Sid? Yeah, no, we're back full time. You know, they're bringing back the furloughed guys. Actually, they're not taking a grant that they were thinking about taking. So it sort of again, goes back to earlier on the show. People didn't know what to expect because it was brand new and it was like, oh, this is fresh and how do we do this? People have dealt with it now and they sort of got over it a little bit.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Mike. I know we've covered a number of topics. Any final thoughts as we wrap up this episode?

Just keep up the good fight, people. It is getting back to normal, I think. If you need treasury career advice, well, you know where to get it, so give us a call. I'm very happy to always have a chat with people and, you know, I love listening to Craig's podcast and we interview a treasurer every week. So I'll do a quick, you know, treasurycareercorner.com go there, listen to the best treasurers. After you listen to strategic treasurer, of course, listen to that and then bookmark me as well. That's fine. Bit of shameless self promotion there. That's not bad. And I think general terms, I think all these treasury or the treasury people we talk to, treasury dudes, this. Let's go back to the beginning. This is what treasury professionals were born to do. Planning, getting through a financial crisis and I'm seeing everybody recovering from it now and it's how we've come out of it. It's a different world with different kind of working patterns and everything else. I think at the end of the day, everyone should be proud of what they've done so far and I'm very hopeful for the rest of the year. It's going to be different, but it's still got the strengths. Think treasury professional. I can't wait to see people start to see each other next year and have that networking. And I can't wait to see more treasury people and, you know, get together again.