Addressing The People Puzzle.

• Author: Paice, Gary

A new survey by Andersen examines how senior tax executives are managing their most important resource.

Increasing emphasis on the bottom line is causing corporate executives to examine value centers in attempts to realize additional value. As a result of their potential contribution, corporate tax departments are receiving more attention. With access to the right combination of people and information, the tax function can substantially improve a company's earnings per share and cash flow.

The supply of experienced tax professionals is shrinking, however. Attracting and retaining these skilled resources is more difficult than ever. Recognizing this trend, Andersen developed the "Solving the People Puzzle" survey, focusing on how senior tax executives at Fortune 500 corporations are managing this important resource. Participants were asked for their input on people-related issues such as recruitment, retention and managing change.

Chief survey findings included:

* When judging future tax professionals, surveyed executives said they would place "somewhat less emphasis" on traditional tax skills and "much more emphasis" on non-traditional traits such as being a strong communicator and understanding the business.

* The implementation of tax planning ideas will receive more emphasis than creation of those ideas, reflecting the increasing need for process leadership by tax professionals to realize the full value of tax planning.

* The traits tax leaders consider most important for promotion are also highly correlated with the traits that tax professionals most need to improve.

Recruitment

Successful hiring is critical to any tax department, since having the right person with the right skills in the right position is essential. It would seem that tax departments would take advantage of all resources available to meet their difficult recruitment goals, yet survey results suggested that human resource (HR) departments have minimal involvement in hiring tax department personnel. Only 7 percent of the tax executives surveyed indicated their HR departments helped develop strategies for new hires. However, many responded that they did rely on HR for more administrative tasks, such as initial screening of candidates (40 percent) and communication and negotiation of employment offers (50 percent).

Professional recruiters are paid to get the recruiting job done. When not using search firms, "word of mouth" from tax department personnel was a technique...