The Future of Work

We’re kicking off season four with Obed Maurice. Obed is a partner at Avail, a mid-sized business advisory and accounting firm in southern Alberta. He's a CPA and he leads the firm's cloud accounting service. It's a specialty he developed on his own as the founder of Maxim Management, one of Canada's earliest cloud accounting firms. Avail acquired Maxim in 2019.

What keeps him up at night is not the future of cloud accounting or digital services or the uncertain future of any of the industries Avail serves. Instead, Obed focused on something much closer to home for CPAs. What keeps him up at night is the uncertainty of how he can continue to attract top talent in the accounting industry. Listen to how he uses technology to attract top talent from across the country to help keep his business competitive.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect those of CPA Canada

Listen to the podcast: What's keeping this technology-focused CPA up at night?

The elevated talent and culture agenda in the boardroom - September 2022

Watch the video: Podium Club - Learning Centre

Specialization. Scarcity. Rivalry. Humanity. Companies that understand—and harness—these forces will have an edge in creating vibrant workforces capable of achieving sustained, positive outcomes.

If you lead, manage, or plan a workforce, you’re familiar with disruption—and have seen a lot of it lately, including geopolitical and social crises and the biggest public health emergency in living memory. And you’ve spent time and energy on everything from designing remote and hybrid work experiences, to understanding the “great resignation,” to simply trying to keep your people safe.

Against this backdrop, you need to keep sight of the urgent, fast-moving workforce challenges you face—without losing sight of the long game. You need to inspire and support your people now, even as you help them redefine the nature of their jobs and roles so they can thrive in a highly uncertain future. Only by getting the balance right can you create the kinds of sustained outcomes that will benefit the company, your workforce, and even society.

Read more: Meet the four forces shaping your workforce strategy

For many organizations, external contributors make up an increasing proportion of the workforce. Now it’s time for workforce management practices to catch up.

With an increasing number of organizations relying on a diverse mix of contributors—including contractors, service providers, gig workers, marketplace sellers, and even bots—to get work done, the concept of the workforce is no longer confined to in-house staff. Instead, many companies are embracing a workforce ecosystems model, which offers an integrated approach to strategically managing widely varying groups of internal and external workers.

Read more: Say Goodbye to the One-Size-Fits-All Workforce Model

To understand how the pandemic has changed the conversation in the boardroom, earlier in 2022, Deloitte interviewed chief human resources officers (CHROs) from 15 leading organizations across multiple industries, including financial services, consumer products, technology, telecommunications, energy, retail, manufacturing, and hospitality. We asked which workforce issues have been elevated to the board level and which topics are likely to remain there for the long term. We also inquired how the CHRO-board of director relationship evolved during the crisis and what
skills CHROs have had to draw upon to succeed in their new environment.

We spoke to diverse industries and geographies, and the feedback was largely consistent, suggesting that the role of today’s CHRO is becoming more strategic, influential, and demanding—or, as one executive stated, “I don’t remember a time when CHROs had as much time in front of the board as over the past two years."

Read more: The Elevated Talent and Culture Agenda in the Boardroom.PDF

Before granting an employee’s request to telework from another country, employers need to ensure the organization is meeting all its obligations.

Read more:The tax implications of employees working remotely abroad