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Interim Management Update H1 2010

Ref. PR-02366

The latest Robert Half CFO Confidence Index has indicated that overall confidence for the next six months has fallen, yet despite this, the job outlook in general remains stable with a number of bright spots on the horizon for finance and accounting professionals, especially as it relates to interim finance managers. 

 

 

 

 

The CFOs surveyed indicated that demand for interim workers within their companies remains strong.  Eighty one percent of CFOs questioned stated that that the number of interim accounting or finance staff employed by their company will increase or stay the same for the second half of 2010. It seems that the ongoing economic uncertainty has created an environment ripe for flexible workers – ‘cost effectiveness’ and ‘cover for a key open position’ were cited as the biggest benefits of using interim staff, while access to skills not currently on the team and managing fixed costs of permanent staff were cited as primary reasons for increasing the number of temporary, project or interim staff.

 

Clearly, there is an opportunity going forward for flexible workers to capitalise on the ongoing demand for temporary staff within UK business. The optimism around the general job outlook reinforces (that although confidence is down) – for finance and accounting professionals the future is positive.

 

The survey also demonstrated that there has been a significant rise in demand for covering key open positions when hiring interim finance and accounting professionals. Moving to being the second most popular reason for hiring in the past six months it is further evidence that the jobs market is moving, especially for interim professionals. 

 

Furthermore we are finding that businesses need to bring interim finance and accounting professionals into their business as they don’t currently have these skills within their own teams.  The CFOs indicated post recession, the most important leadership skills required for success are: solid experience, communication skills and commercial acumen. 

 

So the message is clear, in the wake of the recession and as confidence fluctuates, there are still opportunities out there for finance and accounting professionals to put their best foot forward.

 

 

Contact Us

For further information please contact:

Michelle Whitman
Robert Half International
Tel : 020 7331 2222

Email : michelle.whitman@rhi.net