By Roz Burke, Partner and Katherine Bell, Workforce Strategy Lead for Tax, PwC UK
The clear conclusion from PwC’s latest AI Jobs Barometer is that workers must adapt to a new era. Roles are evolving and new ones are emerging faster than ever, and no more so than in the jobs most exposed to artificial intelligence (AI) – tax and wider finance included.
Reframing tax
Technology is becoming the key differentiator in tax function success, as companies shift to digitised and automated solutions. In particular, generative AI (GenAI) is opening up opportunities to reinvent tax and wider finance functions and reimagine the work within them.
We’re already seeing how GenAI can handle tasks such as document writing, data entry and data analysis. The enriched data and time freed up can help professionals focus more of their skills and capabilities on providing impactful commercial and technical insight and recommendations.
Just as important is the cultural shift – as work within tax and finance shifts from ‘doing’ to ‘reviewing’, backward-looking to future-facing, and becomes smarter, more collaborative and more engaged with the wider organisation in the process.
Where are you on your finance transformation journey?
Understanding your starting point is critical to finding the right way forward. Use our interactive tool to assess where you are on your journey and access further content to help your finance function get fit for the future and deliver greater business benefits.
Future ready talent
So how can you as a CFO or head of tax make sure your teams have the skills, confidence and motivation to make the most of the tech potential? Five fundamental priorities stand out:
Know what’s coming
The starting point is exploring how and where new technology can be used and embedded with your operations and how this will impact roles and responsibilities within your team. The results will help you to anticipate future workforce skill requirements and plan ahead, rather than reactively responding.
Recognise the generational shift
Key considerations don’t just include what skills will we require in the future, but what will the talent we need to attract, retain and nurture want from us. This includes developing a clear understanding of changing generational expectations and aspirations.
Create attractive career paths
Design attractive career pathways capable of developing and inspiring talent with skills aligned to future workforce models. In practice, this requires innovative development and support frameworks that recognise that working lives won’t be the same as previous generations.
Nurture ‘human’ as well as digital skills
Skilled specialists in areas such as AI training are clearly going to be more critical. But the key is upskilling and embedding digital skills across your organisation. Moreover, as more operations become automated, the skills that can’t be replicated by machines such as creativity, engagement and leadership are going to be more prized and important than ever.
When survey respondents were asked about the biggest skills gaps they face, they highlighted digital skills, data skills and sustainability skills as their top three.
Foster adaptability in accelerated careers
Entry level talent will need to adapt and develop new skills at pace as workloads transition from basic tasks to prompting technology, supervising technical responses and becoming more involved in responsibilities that were previously reserved for management.
GenAI will provide access to tax technical responses. Nonetheless, it’s still important to develop effective tax technical skills earlier in people’s careers so they can review the responses, identify any gaps and adapt to changing business and regulatory demands.
Reaping the rewards
So work is changing, but with this comes the opportunity for tax and wider finance teams to bring more insight and innovation to the top table of business decision making, while developing more varied and rewarding careers.
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