Most (64%) of the CFOs, controllers and other finance professionals surveyed plan to maintain current staffing levels while 32% intend to increase their finance and accounting numbers, and only 4% are planning cuts, according to the findings of a recent Controllers Council survey conducted from May to July. 

The national survey of some 200 respondents also found that while outsourcing was seen as the answer to leaders’ talent shortage issues, this has changed dramatically. For example, the share of finance leader respondents saying they're outsourcing has gone from 40% last year to 27% this year, the study found.

The increased interest in building finance teams up is a change from the previous two years when many people were cutting staff and companies overall were being very cautious on hiring, said Brandt Kucharski, CAO of Austin-based insurance company Ethos Life and a panelist in a recent webinar hosted by the Controllers Council. “We’re seeing that flipped now, there’s a lot of optimism that the worst is behind us,” he said.

The survey’s findings signaling that in-house finance staff is relatively safe from cuts comes as automation and the rise of generative AI have become a looming threat to in-house financial teams’ future livelihoods, even as the accounting industry broadly is also worried about a shrinking pipeline of younger accountants. 

Kurcharski and fellow panelist Joy Mbanugo, CFO of Palo Alto, Calif.-based technology solutions provider Service Rocket, both said that they are planning to increase hiring at their organizations, with Kucharski saying that some of the pessimism and caution that people held the last few years is starting to fade. 

Both panelists said they want to bring more finance functions in-house and only outsource when they need specific expertise like handling a merger or doing complex taxes.

“We outsource tax, even though my background is in tax, it's just too complicated sometimes to try to do that internally and it can be expensive,” said Mbanugo.

At the same time, they said as more companies signal their intent to hire, competition for talent has grown more fierce, with some smaller firms like Mbanugo’s finding themselves competing against tech giants like Alphabet’s Google or Uber Technologies.

“Competing against them for hiring is really challenging when you’re a smaller company with a different compensation structure,” said Mbanugo, noting that a tech company’s stock and dividend compensation is hard to compete with.  

Kucharski said that many professionals fled to large companies like that for safety and stability. However, these same professionals have recently learned that even these big companies “aren’t immune to layoffs” and so are starting to return to smaller startups.

“We’ve had open roles with hundreds and hundreds of really great candidates applying for open roles we’ve had. We’re seeing the swing back to small to mid-sized companies,” Kurcharski said. 

Employer competition for controllers is particularly fierce; when survey respondents were asked what roles are the most challenging to recruit for, controllers were far and away the most common answer at 51%. Mbanugo was not surprised by this, given what she has seen lately. 

“One role I will say is challenging to fill is the controller role,” she said, noting that her husband is a controller who seems to get emails daily about job opportunities.

Kucharski noted that, when it comes to controllers and other higher level professionals like senior accountants, companies are fighting over a very small pool of talented people with very high aspirations, which means demand is “red hot.” Part of this is due to companies seeking out a very specific kind of professional. 

“A lot of folks want the same type of person, someone who worked at a big firm and has two or three or four years of experience. You’d need to find that person at an accounting firm, get them to leave that firm or put something out there and work with a recruiter to find someone who fits that,” Kucharski said. “There’s competition for sure.” 

He added, though, that remote work is a great help in recruiting, as it allows people to look for talent all over the country.” 

“It really helps out the pipeline so we can recruit across the country. We’re 100% remote so we can open a position and have folks apply from Boston, Nashville, Chicago, San Francisco, everywhere,” he said.