When a top finance performer hands in their notice, most business leaders react the same way: throw more money at them. Sometimes it buys you a few extra months. But it rarely fixes the real problem.
Retention isn’t won with last-minute counter-offers. It’s built every day by creating an environment so engaging, supportive, and rewarding that leaving never even crosses their mind.
Here’s how to make that happen – and keep your best finance talent exactly where they belong.
Give Them Problems Worth Solving
Top finance professionals thrive on challenges – it’s why they’ve made it to the top of their game. If their day-to-day turns into nothing more than a cycle of spreadsheets, reconciliations, and repetitive reporting, they’ll eventually get restless. And when talented people feel stuck on autopilot, they don’t just disengage – they start looking for opportunities elsewhere.
Retention isn’t about keeping them busy with more tasks; it’s about stretching them with the right kind of work. The best finance leaders want to feel they’re contributing to something bigger. They want to be part of the conversations that drive the business forward. That means giving them exposure to commercial decisions, involving them in strategic planning sessions, and trusting them to weigh in on the risks and opportunities that shape the company’s future.
It’s also about framing problems in a way that feels worth solving. Instead of handing them a backlog of transactional tasks, ask them to find efficiencies in the finance function, identify growth levers from the data, or model different scenarios for international expansion. These are the kinds of challenges that play to their strengths and keep them engaged, because they can see the direct impact of their work on the business.
Ultimately, top performers don’t just want to process numbers – they want to influence outcomes. Give them meaningful problems to solve, and you’ll keep their energy, loyalty, and creativity firmly in your business.
Show Them the Future (Inside Your Business)
Ambitious finance professionals are constantly considering the future. They thrive on progress, and if they can’t see a future within your business, they’ll quickly assume they need to look elsewhere to move forward. Even if they love the role they’re in today, the absence of a clear path signals a ceiling – and ceilings make top performers disengage.
Retention is about showing your people the places they can progress into. That might mean mapping out a traditional progression route into roles like Finance Director or CFO, or it could mean creating opportunities that allow them to broaden their horizons. Exposure to new markets, taking the lead on a project, or heading up a cross-functional initiative are all powerful ways to give them a sense of forward motion without waiting for someone above them to retire.
Clarity is the key. Vague promises of “opportunities down the line” won’t cut it. What ambitious finance talent really wants to see is a roadmap: how their skills today connect to the responsibilities they could take on tomorrow, and what milestones they need to hit to get there. When you’re transparent about progression and back it up with real opportunities, you transform ambition from a potential flight risk into a reason to stay.
By showing your people a future inside your business, you keep their drive, curiosity, and career goals aligned with your own. Instead of scanning LinkedIn for their next move, they’ll be focusing on how to make that next move with you.
Autonomy Builds Loyalty
Micromanagement is one of the fastest ways to drive great people out of your business. If you’ve hired well, trust their judgement – or risk suffocating their motivation.
True retention comes from giving people space to do the job they were hired for. That means letting them own projects end to end, take responsibility for outcomes, and make decisions that matter. When finance leaders are trusted to shape outcomes, they feel valued not just for their technical skills but for their strategic impact.
So what does autonomy look like in practice?
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Ownership of projects: Allow them to manage initiatives from scoping through to delivery, not just pieces of the puzzle.
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Decision-making authority: Empower them to make calls that influence the business, and trust them to handle the accountability that comes with it.
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Creative freedom: Give them space to introduce new ideas and approaches – whether that’s redesigning a reporting process, testing a system, or modelling scenarios.
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Direct involvement: Let them take their recommendations straight to senior leadership or the board, rather than filtering their voice through layers of approval.
Of course, autonomy doesn’t mean stepping back entirely. The best leaders provide guardrails and support, but avoid suffocating oversight. It’s about balancing freedom with guidance – enough space to innovate, with the reassurance of a supportive team when needed.
Handled well, autonomy turns a job into something much bigger: a career someone can feel genuine ownership of. And when people are proud of the work they’re doing, they’re far less likely to search for that sense of ownership somewhere else.
Recognition Matters More Than You Think
Finance professionals don’t always get the spotlight – but their impact runs through everything a business does. They’re the ones protecting margins when costs rise, improving cash flow when markets tighten, and influencing strategy when tough decisions need to be made. Yet too often, their contribution is treated as a “given” rather than something to celebrate. And when people feel invisible, they start to question whether their hard work is actually paying off.
Recognition doesn’t have to mean lavish bonuses or grand gestures. What matters most is being specific and genuine. Call out wins in company meetings, not just when sales close a big deal or marketing lands a new campaign, but when finance has streamlined reporting, secured better terms with suppliers, or identified an opportunity that directly fuels growth. Highlighting those contributions publicly reinforces the message that finance is central to success – not just a support function in the background.
When finance professionals feel seen, appreciated, and celebrated, they’re far more likely to stay loyal. Recognition builds pride, and pride builds retention. And when recruiters inevitably come knocking with promises of more money or a shinier title, the pull is much weaker if people already feel valued where they are.
Keep the Work Fresh and Varied
Routine has its place in finance – after all, month-end, reporting cycles, and audits will always be part of the job. But if that’s the full extent of someone’s role, it quickly starts to feel narrow. The best finance professionals want more than repetition; they want to be stretched, challenged, and involved in work that makes a difference.
Keeping things fresh doesn’t mean inventing busywork. It’s about deliberately broadening their scope and exposing them to projects that expand their skills and perspective. That could be rotating responsibilities within the finance team so they build a wider base of experience, or involving them in major initiatives like system upgrades, acquisitions, or investment modelling. These are opportunities that add energy to their work and show them their role is evolving alongside the business.
Bringing finance into other departments’ challenges is another way to add variety. Let them sit in on commercial discussions, partner with operations on supply chain questions, or work with HR on headcount planning. It not only adds variety, but also builds business-wide relationships, and reinforces the message that finance is at the heart of decision-making.
The more connected they feel to the wider organisation – and the more their role grows with it – the harder it becomes for them to picture leaving. Variety signals progression, and progression is what keeps top talent engaged for the long term.
Support Work-Life Balance
For today’s top finance talent, flexibility isn’t a perk – it’s an expectation. The pandemic accelerated a shift that was already in motion: people want to work in a way that fits with their lives, not squeeze their lives around rigid office rules. If businesses can’t offer that, they risk losing their best people to those that can.
Supporting work-life balance goes beyond the basics of hybrid working. It’s about creating an environment where wellbeing is genuinely prioritised. That could mean flexible start and finish times so parents can manage school runs, protecting focus time so people aren’t drowning in unnecessary meetings, or being clear that emails sent at 10pm don’t require an immediate reply. These small but deliberate choices send a big message: we respect your boundaries, and we want you to sustain your performance for the long term.
The other side of work-life balance is actively protecting people from burnout. In finance, where deadlines and pressures can be relentless, it’s easy for workloads to creep beyond what’s sustainable. Leaders need to step in early – redistributing tasks, hiring extra support, or simply encouraging people to take a break – to stop high performers from running on empty. Burnout doesn’t just cost you productivity in the short term; it risks losing talent altogether.
When employees feel that their health and wellbeing are valued as much as their output, loyalty follows naturally. People give their best when they know their company has their back. And when finance professionals see that balance is possible in your business, they’ll think twice before leaving it.
Final Thought:
Retention isn’t about scrambling for an emergency pay rise when someone hands in their notice. By then, it’s too late. Loyalty is built long before that point — through everyday actions that make your best people want to stay.
When you lose finance talent, you don’t just lose technical skills. You lose momentum, continuity, and cultural strength — the kind of value that takes years to rebuild.
The businesses that keep their top people are the ones creating environments no one wants to walk away from. That means work that challenges, career paths that inspire, autonomy that empowers, recognition that values, variety that excites, and balance that protects. Combine those elements and you’ll create a culture where retention takes care of itself.
At We Do Group, we help businesses build exactly that – through placing finance talent that sticks, and creating teams where people don’t just join, they thrive.
