One Worker Can't Do It All, But a Global Team Like Ours Can

In this series, professionals debate the state – and future – of their industry. Read more here, then write your own #MyIndustry post.

There has never been a more exciting time to be part of our profession.

We have a long history and a brand that is known for quality, integrity, creating value, building trust and service that benefits others. And to ensure our relevance to those we serve, we’re more globally connected and more innovative, and we’re developing leaders who understand business and contribute to solving the important issues facing our world today.

We’re challenging ourselves to meet society’s rising expectations

From our earliest days, PwC has provided something that society needs: an independent view on the financial statements used in the capital markets.

However, the expectations of our stakeholders are changing. Financial statement users are looking for changes in the type of information that companies disclose and how that information is presented in ways that are more meaningful to them.

Changing expectations are not limited to members of the investment community and financial statements. The global trends we’re seeing, including demographic shifts, urbanization, resource scarcity, technological innovations and shifts in economic power, are creating challenges for society.

These challenges include a bigger trust gap. The 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer shows that the average person has greater trust in their peers than they do in institutions such as business and government. The Edelman study also shows a rising expectation that businesses will step up and improve the economic and social conditions in the communities where they operate.

As we interact with management teams, boards of directors, and members of the investment community, it’s clear that everyone is concerned with balancing immediate actions and priorities with the longer-term view — a topic that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink wrote about in his recent letter to CEOs.

CEOs understand these rising expectations. In our most recent CEO Survey, business leaders told us they need to serve and balance the needs of many more stakeholders, find equilibrium between longer-term strategy and short-term results, and develop new measures that help stakeholders understand quarterly results as well as the actions — such as innovation and investment — which would drive a company’s long-term value.

These matters create great opportunity for our profession and all of those in it to play an important role. We’re helping to build trust by fostering dialogue among participants in the capital markets and helping businesses in their efforts to meet the expectations of customers for trusted, digitally enabled interactions. We’re also helping our clients in appropriate ways as they seek to achieve better results and to better communicate those results, while recognizing the needs and expectations of all their stakeholders. 

We’re building future leaders

With all of this change, and with rising expectations of our profession, PwC is focused on identifying and developing future leaders who are equipped to succeed in this more global, volatile environment and contribute to solving the important issues facing our clients and society.

This means that when we hire and develop today’s professional, we’re not just looking for smart people with specific skills and the right core values — we’re looking for people who also have global acumen, agility, and a willingness to reinvent themselves over the course of their careers. And we have a professional development framework in place across the PwC global network of firms to help our people grow as leaders across specific dimensions that will be required of top professionals in the future.

To help our new recruits be prepared to build a career in this fast-changing environment, we’re working with leading universities on the curriculum that will elevate their graduates’ skills profiles, particularly in the area of technology. We’ve written a white paper to drive dialogue about how educators, companies and regulators can work together to equip students with the technology, data analytics and leadership skills they need — both for the role we play today and as we continue to evolve in this technology-enabled world.

The significant investment PwC makes in our people continues to deliver returns, whether they are volunteering in the community or moving on to pursue other careers. We’re enriching the quality of talent joining the business, government and not-for-profit worlds as former PwC people bring the skills and experiences they gained here to address important issues facing the planet and to contribute to the future of the capital markets.

We’re changing how we work

We know it’s critical that our people balance a successful career with their interests outside of work, both in how they contribute to their local communities and how they take care of themselves, their friends, and family.

As a result, PwC is giving our people more career models and options for flexibility. This includes our use of technology to provide options for how and where we work, and a greater focus on team plans that take into account both client and personal commitments.

Flexible staffing models help retain top performers, while changes such as the use of delivery centers provide less tenured team members more opportunities to focus on higher-level tasks, giving them greater responsibility earlier in their careers.

We also recognize that for some individuals a successful career doesn’t necessarily mean working for one employer. According to Intuit & Emergent Research, an estimated 40% of the U.S. workforce will be freelance workers by 2020. Our new Talent Exchange platform — which launched this month — responds to this trend by allowing us to connect top independent talent with significant client opportunities at PwC.

In addition to new staffing models, PwC is also making significant investments globally in technology aimed at providing teams with the best tools to support their work and our clients with additional insights.

Our people want to be productive whether working at home, in the dentist’s waiting room, at the airport, or at a client site. That’s why we are investing in the technology we need to allow our talented people to collaborate with each other, whether team members are in the same conference room or scattered around the globe. In a 24/7 world we’ve learned that one individual can’t do it all, but a motivated team enabled by the right technology can work across time zones to respond to our clients’ needs, wherever they do business. And our people benefit as well: our technology choices help us retain talented people who want greater flexibility in how, when, and where they work.

New technology is also providing greater insights to our clients and helping to unlock insights from the vast amount of data they have on their businesses. Our use of data analytics not only helps us work efficiently, it creates value for our stakeholders. For example, the data extraction and visualization capabilities used by our audit teams allow us to extract and analyze large volumes of data and focus on higher risk transactions, while enhancing quality. These tools also help us provide greater insights to boards and audit committees, and help us meet those rising expectations, both of the companies we serve and other capital markets stakeholders.

We’re pushing ourselves to bring diverse thinking to complex problems

The organizations we serve — and society more broadly — are facing a world of great complexity. The issues at hand are big and multidimensional — and can’t be solved by looking at them from just one perspective.

Our CEO Survey shows that business leaders are concerned about how to grow in an uncertain environment, over-regulation, the expectations of their customers and future customers, how to use technology to set themselves apart, and a variety of other issues.

Tackling all this requires teams of individuals bringing together their deep industry knowledge, global perspectives, technology know-how, and different backgrounds and skills to think through issues from strategy through execution.

 As PwC has grown from 33,000 to 46,000 people over the last five years, our hiring of “traditional” audit and tax professionals remained strong and hiring in our specialty practices has increased. We are now hiring individuals from over 100 different skill sets and backgrounds. Among the 17,000 people who joined PwC last year were MBAs, MFAs, app designers, engineers, economists, industry specialists, security experts, professionals from the public sector, and many others with the skills that allow us to build teams that look at problems from multiple perspectives so that good ideas become better ones. 

Why now is a great time to join our profession

For those thinking about joining our profession, the opportunities you’ll have and the changes you’ll see will be tremendous. As our people grow and learn, they become part of the dialogue about the most critical trends and challenges facing our planet. They not only deliver quality and value in serving our clients, they selflessly give their time and skills to help with important issues, from teaching and mentoring young people who are the next generation of leaders, to helping organizations that play an essential role in the health and sustainability of local communities.

The challenges facing our world mean more opportunities for us and for others who will follow that path to play a valuable and exciting role and make a difference to our many stakeholders. You’ll have the opportunity to carry forward the values that our profession has represented for 150+ years, and you’ll drive the new ideas and innovation that will keep our profession strong and relevant for many years to come.