Treasury management handles everything that relates to the management of a company’s holdings, with the ultimate purpose of managing the enterprise’s cash flow and financial risk. Treasury Management includes all funding, investment, collections, concentrations and disbursements.
The lockdowns imposed on all of use over the past to years have led to the idea that Corporate Treasury Departments may recruit employees located anywhere in the world, since remote working doesn’t involve the physical presence in the office.
Is this really for real? I find it a bit strange, at least.
I’ve seen remote work successfully implemented to cover for sickness leaves and other interim situations.
I’ve also seen it with sharply focused projects such as TMS implementations or upgrades. Does this mean that I genuinely believe we are currently migrating towards the home / virtual way of working for Treasury teams?
No, it doesn’t.
If you want more details, let me tell you that I’ve recently recruited a Group Treasury opening for one of our clients. This client of ours has been ready to interview even candidates outside their usual geography area.
Nevertheless, they’ve requested that the new Treasurer would spend around half of the working time in London – the main reason for that was that the position required physical coaching to the entire treasury team, ranging in experience from interns to Head of Treasury Operations.
All of these people have different coaching needs, and therefore the Treasurer has to take an active role in identifying and catering to these needs. This is difficult, if not impossible to perform 100% virtually.
In its very essence, Treasury is a collaborative discipline. Treasury teams do their work with the help of physical meetings, as getting together is essential for their ongoing tasks and projects. Such meetings are excellent opportunities for team members to brainstorm and exchange ideas, for the greater good of the enterprise.
As mentioned before, the newly hired Treasurer has already expressed what she considers to be essential to the training of junior members. She also stated a few ideas on mentoring the more experienced members of the team.
The Treasurer needs to provide all of these people with support, but also with a shoulder to lean on when they need it most. This new Treasury team works as a blend of two worlds, the one we all knew and the one enforced on us by the pandemic. One thing we’ve all understood from this past period is that daily commutes are often a waste of time that could be directed towards more productive purposes.
If you are looking for treasury jobs in the UK, US or Europe then please feel free to check out The Treasury Recruitment Company.
The pandemic has also taught us that we are social beings, indeed, who love working together and sharing. Treasury teams rely on this social interaction and exchange of opinions to do their job in a brilliant and effective manner. This is why we shouldn’t overlook or underestimate them, in our desire to keep working remotely for good. They do need a certain amount of human interaction to thrive and perform at their best, so we should do everything in our power to provide a communal setting for them.