The Critical Role CFOs and CHROs play in Collaborative Corporate Planning
For Financial and HR leaders, one of the most profound lessons learned from the global COVID-19 pandemic is the importance of collaborative corporate planning to adapt to unforeseen circumstances and ensure agility to react to future changes.
The pandemic forced many organizations to rethink their business models, customer engagement opportunities, and employee experience approaches rapidly to remain competitive. As we look toward continued health and economic recovery, organizations must focus on aligning expectations, priorities, and actions in this new and continually changing landscape.
Leveraging Data to Unlock Strategic Opportunity
To keep pace with ever-evolving employee and customer expectations, HR and Finance leaders must unlock data and gain actionable insights rapidly at scale. In a recent CFO-CHRO sentiment study*, nearly half of the 300 participants reported that they plan to increase their investments in financial planning and analysis (FP&A) technologies, dashboards, advanced forecasting/planning models, and predictive analytics.
With the right planning tools, finance teams can spend their time on modeling and strategic analysis rather than time-consuming data aggregation and reconciliation. With dynamic data at their fingertips, running financial models and what-if scenarios will be fast and efficient, and businesses will be positioned to accelerate their growth and even capitalize on the very active post-pandemic M&A landscape.
Planning for the High-Stakes Talent War
For HR leaders, changes in business strategies have collided with shifts in employee expectations, and the war for top talent has not slowed. HR leaders are increasingly focused on measuring employee sentiment and evaluating workplace culture including an increased focus on mental health, diversity, and other employee touchpoints.
And while the initial shift to remote work was meant to be temporary, many HR leaders are planning for ongoing flexible work environments, evaluating considerations including how to maintain company culture and measure remote worker productivity.
The Bottom Line
To accelerate growth and remain agile in an uncertain environment, Finance and HR leaders must collaborate to ensure finance and corporate business plans are in sync with workforce plans. Forward-thinking organizations will bring CFOs and CHROs together to leverage data-driven planning tools that help:
- Uncover business insights
- Improve operational resilience
- Reduce enterprise risk
- Support accelerated growth and expansion
*AchieveNEXT 2021 CFO-CHRO Sentiment Study