London, UK -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/09/2022 -- [Trend topics]. Finance and human resources leaders identify attracting vital talent and improving operational efficiency as the key factors for building sustainable growth. That's according to a survey of more than 500 CFOs and CHROs. 74% of those who took part in the survey said that their business outlook improved during 2021 - and 80% predicted that growth during 2022 would turn out to be even better. Ensuring that growth would be sustainable was something that CFOs and CHROs together attributed to two important factors: talent strategy and operational streamlining.
Talent strategy. Being able to attract, train and retain a capable and reliable workforce is going to be crucial to building sustainable growth for most businesses in the coming years. Uncertainty over staffing can be an obstacle in the way of effective strategy - it's challenging to plan initiatives for growth where there is any uncertainty over headcount or the skills and experience available within the business. Many companies are still in flux when it comes to headcount, with 40% of midmarket companies still planning to increase headcount in 2022. Given the impact of the Great Resignation there is huge merit in investing in employee retention, something that CHROs are achieving in a number of different ways. This includes implementing training and development programmes and strengthening executive hiring so that the business has strong leadership at the helm. Cultural improvements make a big difference too, from diversity and inclusion initiatives to embedding values such as empathy and compassion.
Operational streamlining. For CFOS, it's operational streamlining that is going to deliver the most value in terms of securing sustainable growth, especially in the potentially tight times of coming months. Agility has a big role to play here - moving away from expensive and counterintuitive legacy systems that commit the business to high overheads or poor supply chain choices. Being able to experiment with different approaches - especially when it comes to making the right technology investments - is likely to give businesses an edge in terms of streamlining. In fact, technology is one of the key drivers for streamlining, not just when it comes to back office functions but also being able to deliver on increasingly high customer expectations about products and services.
[How the company does something relevant to the topic]. Those in leadership roles, such as CFO and CHRO, have a vital part to play in whether or not the business is able to achieve sustainable growth going forward. Leathwaite's core purpose is supporting organisations when it comes to creating meaningful change through exceptional people because it's those who lead that have the power to transform. This belief is something that the firm embodies in the way it is run internally. Core values at Leathwaite drive everything that the firm does and filter down from leadership. These are: Be Distinctive, Maintain Humility and Compete Together. When it comes to factors such as streamlining operations on ensuring an effective talent strategy it's so important for an organisation to have a firm foundation of core values and purpose to nurture this from. Leathwaite success in this can be quantified in many ways, including the firm's abnormally low staff turnover levels.
[How the company carries out the particular service/product]. Both the CFO and CHRO roles carry such enormous weight within an organisation that finding the right people can be critical. Leathwaite works with CEOs, boards and HR leaders to recruit market-leading CHROs and People Officers and to help and advise CHROs in building resilient teams. When it comes to sustainable growth, as well as transformation and performance, human resources functions have a critical role to play in addressing pressing business challenges and the team at Leathwaite are experts at helping organisations to find leaders who are the right fit. The same is true for finance officers - Leathwaite has a wealth of experience in finding finance leadership talent across sectors and a deep understanding of how the core demands of financial officers vary by industry.
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About Leathwaite
Leathwaite delivers when it comes to HR talent, whether that is an HR director or CHRO. The team are CFO recruiters, leaders in headhunting recruitment and human capital specialists, delivering an interconnected range of executive search, executive interim and data & insight services, including with respect to HR talent. Since establishing the business in 1999, Leathwaite has developed key international client partnerships across a range of industry sectors.