Welcome back to Count Me In,

IMA's podcast about all things affecting
the accounting and finance world.

This is your host Adam Larson,

and I'm pleased to introduce Paro's
CFO and Chief Strategy Officer,

Michael Burdick,

Michael founded his company with the
goal of reimagining the finance and

accounting industry via the
freelance economy. In this episode,

he talks with Mitch about how the future
of finance really comes down to the

freedom of choice and the ability to
quickly solve problems for the business.

Keep listening to learn more
about on-demand fractional
talent and the future of

work.

The future of work, or more specifically
for our listeners, you know,

the future of finance.

It's talked about a lot when it comes
to what the profession needs to know.

And I think as we were kind of just
discussing it, it's been a popular topic,

but obviously much has changed in the
last year or so since the future of work

really came to light. So I'm
curious from your perspective,

why is it talked about so much? How
do you define the future of finance,

the future of work, you know, and
what does it really mean to you?

Sure. Well, first off,
thanks for having me.

And I'm excited to dig in on this question
and related topics in terms of the

future of work. I think taking a step
back, we need to discuss, you know, the,

the changes that COVID had on
worker preferences and how we all

approach work in general.

It was COVID was a giant
mass social experiment in

remote work. We're all
forced to do it. And,

and being forced to work remotely,

all business professionals for the first
time realized how mobile they can be.

I think that's an important thing to
call out here because prior to COVID,

pre pandemic,

people wanted to express that choice and
have that flexibility and work on their

own terms,

but didn't necessarily have the platform
or the burning platform really for

that change specifically to occur.

And now what we're seeing is a big shift
in how worker preferences are popping

up and specifically that
people want to work remotely.

You can't put that genie
back in the bottle,

business professionals want to
work on their own terms. You know,

you see all these big
public battles going on at,

major tech companies, even
PWC announcing that, you know,

I don't know something like a hundred
thousand of their workers will be

permanently remote. And the
thing is in the future of work,

it's all about that choice and
flexibility that people want,

and aligning that with
what company's demands are.

So that's a little bit
of context and backstory,

but I think this is really a major change,

a major period of change,

specifically as it
relates to how financial

institutions, accounting firms,
enterprises approach work in general.

And I think it's,

foundational in a few different
regards, specifically,

allowing people to exercise
that choice in an industry that

was previously very
hesitant to adopt. you know,

we're talking about a pretty
risk averse industry in general,

so pretty hesitant to adopt
futuristic approaches and demands that

are being forced on finance departments

are multifaceted and what's valued is
flexibility and agility, which by the way,

the future of work does
offer. So I don't know,

I think this is just a major
period for change. You know,

what the context being that COVID
accelerated a lot of that change.

Yeah, that's exactly it.

And I think we did a lot of
research on the future of work,

and this is going back,
like you said, pre pandemic,

and a lot of the ideas were
quickly put into place, right?

So the idea of future of finance, future
of work, it's evolving just as fast as,

you know, what we're seeing
underneath our feet. So, you know,

taking this a step further, where else
can this really go in your opinion?

You know, the future of
work is, is now essentially.

So what differentiates the
current state of finance from what

the new future of finance may look like?

Current state from new future of
finance? Well, let's take a step back.

I think it's important to define future
of work a little bit more and unpack

that if it's okay, because
that's a, that's a very big,

bold statement that can mean
multiple different things.

Future of work can encompass the
technology and tools that are necessary

for working remotely. For example,

it can also refer specifically
to worker automation, right?

Machine learning. It can also refer
to how people work specifically for

Paro and how we're looking at worker
preference changes is related to the

freelance economy.

So I did want to highlight that
for us future work and freelance

economy,

we sort of use those interchangeably
because there are additional forces at

play here. that dictate what the
future of work is going to look like.

But specifically for us, we're, we're
looking at the freelance economy.

I appreciate you sharing that
context because it does, you know,

there are different interpretations,
different definitions and, you know,

to speak to the freelance
economy, as you said,

that's actually the first time
I've heard something like that.

So I think now getting your
perspective on, you know, kind of,

like I said,

what do you anticipate becoming more
prevalent in this freelance economy?

I would say,

freelance was something that was
futuristic almost for the accounting

profession, not too long ago. And now
you're saying it's, it's pretty much,

you know, a part of your company.

so what do you see becoming
more prevalent and, you know,

how do you kind of differentiate the
current state from your definition

of the future of work?

Yeah, so I think there are three key
things that are gaining momentum very

quickly, specifically as it relates to
the future of work and freelance economy.

One is on-demand expertise.

If you really think about
what a firm model or a job or

working at a large company entails
pretty much requires the worker to

morph and change into. It's almost like
a fitting around peg into a square hole.

The worker has to adapt to what
the company requires and on-demand

expertise in the future of work.

It's really enabling the
individual to express their

individual creativity
skills and preferences.

And so I think that's a key
distinction, to, as remote work. I,

I brought this up earlier as it relates
to context and post COVID changes.

We really can't put that
genie back in the bottle.

Once people have experienced what it's
like to work remotely, if you will,

again, you know,

talking about Google and Apple and all
these major tech companies pushing back

their in person,
requirements and, you know,

PWC even going almost fully remote
that, that, that's just something,

once you experience it and,

and once it's been opened up,
it's really hard to revert back.

So I think remote work is here to stay.

And then third is related to individual
choice and I was kind of alluding to

this as it relates to on-demand expertise,

but choice is something that I think
we've all wanted to express at one point

in our careers. You know, there's
something that, that doesn't fit, right?

Maybe it's work-life balance, you know,

thinking about commuting into
the office two hours each way.

and all of that lost time that you could
be spending with family, for example,

that's a choice that we make
and sometimes those choices are

limited and the future work
in the freelance economy.

I think part of this is opening up the
options and the choices that we have at

our disposal. And so I think
it's those three things,

key things is on-demand expertise
two is remote work and three is

choice.

Those are all really good
points. And, you know,

I kind of want to follow up on
each of them, you know, if I,

can and you let me know what
you think, but you know,

we're talking about this idea of becoming
more prevalent and you listed a bunch

of companies who have bought into the
remote work, right? We've all seen,

indefinite, you know,

remote work or at least pushing
it out to sometime 2022,

whatever the case may be.
So if it is remote work,

maybe it's the idea of freedom
of choice. Like you were saying,

really giving into,

what the employees need
within the organization.

Or if it's just the on
demand piece of this,

I'm sure there are challenges
is what I'm getting at. Right?

And some of the more traditional
organizations probably have

organizational decision makers who
don't quite buy into this, right.

They still want to go
back to the old ways.

So what do you think it's going to
take for some of these businesses,

some of these individuals to really
buy into these three components of the

future of work that you
just laid out for us.

I'm going to bifurcate this in two,

companies and workers, you know,

the business professionals for
companies there is on average,

an old school, old guard
mentality where, you know,

I need face time, but I value
butts in seats. I value,

you know,

you clocking in and clocking out and
that's not what workers are looking for.

They want that choice,
flexibility, autonomy, freedom,

also to feel like they've,
self-actualized, you know,

they've reached almost the
peak of their worker preference

pyramid. You know,

if you want to think about it as
the Maslow's hierarchy of needs,

foundational layers for workers,
or, you know, income and stability,

all the way up to, at the top would
be like, self-actualization, you know,

feeling like they're making a
difference, feeling fulfilled, you know,

and in between there could be
like community and, you know,

feeling like it sends a comradery.

And so if you look at
that holistic pyramid,

that's a lot for somebody to
actually like, feel empowered,

to leave a full-time job and
go out and express that choice.

So from a worker standpoint,
I think there's a,

still a lot that the industry needs
to do industry meaning the freelance

economy to enable people to express
that choice because frankly,

the freelance economy for
most is terrifying, right?

Not knowing how much you're going to
make in the future having to go find the

next opportunity.

And how we think about it
as at Paro is we'll be we're

freeing experts and business professionals
to leave the confines of traditional

employment and go express their
talents on their own terms.

And that's really difficult
to your point, Mitchell,

which is it's a incredibly complex
problem from worker preferences

to enable that choice.

Now having said that business
professionals on average have,

have experienced remote work
and what it means to have

some semblance of choice because of
COVID and being able to work on their own

terms wherever they
want whenever they want.

And so I think that the
reversion back to the main,

it's not necessarily going to occur,

but we're more pushing towards
that individual choice.

Having said that companies and
enterprises historically are

slower to move up the change
curve and adopt us just because

they're large ships and steering, a
large ship is very difficult to do.

And however, if you think about
the worker preference changes,

if companies don't,

adapt and change and think about
flexibility and choice ingrained

in their DNA and how they
think about their cultures,

then they're not going to have access
to the worker population and pool that

they had access to prior to COVID because
those workers are going to also be in

the freelance economy,
working on their own terms,

expressing their talents elsewhere.

So it really is if enterprises
and companies don't adapt,

then they just won't have
access to that talent.

And I think that's something that's
incredibly important to them.

I want to get your opinion
on something. You know,

I mentioned we did a lot of research
into the future of work, you know,

going on a couple of years ago now, and
one of the theories or philosophies,

whatever you want to call it, kind
of what you were talking about here,

as far as employee engagement and,

and just their overall involvement with
the company was kind of this 60, 30,

10 rule where, you know,
employees, they dedicate, you know,

60% of their time or focus attention.

However you want to break it up
into their main hustle, right?

Their main source of income, you
know, they have to satisfy that need,

but then employees also have other
wants. They have other talents,

I think is maybe what you're talking
about here. And roughly 30% of the time,

you know,

they can express themselves with some
kind of side hustle or something that

gets, gives them more enjoyment.

And then 10% goes to learning about
themselves and about their skills and

whatever the case may be.
So, you know, like I said,

this was something that
popped up during research.

Is that something that you're seeing
as far as this freelance economy where

people have different passions as
well, or do you think it really is,

is it income driven?

Like w what is the need for
this individual satisfaction
as they go and search

for this?

That's a great point you bring
up and it's a fantastic question.

The reality is choice is very difficult

to pin down and define, you know,

we all want to like have a
formula for what choice is,

that's the ideal state. However,
we're talking about individuals here,

we're talking about people that
are very different. There's no,

there's no specific pattern because one,

one person could want just to work
on passion projects, to your point,

one person could want to become a
deep domain expert on one topic.

That choice is really, really
hard to empower and enable.

And so to your point,

I think part of it is providing the
flexibility for people to choose

what that route from
a personal standpoint,

and an individual standpoint could
be so specifically thinking about the

hierarchy of needs that I
kind of outlined earlier.

Part of it is nailing that down first,
right at the foundational levels,

it's income, stability,
and predictability,

in the middle it's career
growth, income growth, community.

And at the top,

it's really like self-actualization
realizing like their full potential.

And, and, you know, for me, I use
the analogy as to where I came from.

So at Deloitte,

it was self-actualization could be defined
as you've made it to the partnership,

right? It's whatever your individual
goal is. However that wasn't my goal,

but reaching the pinnacle and the peak,

is an individual choice and defined
by the business professional.

And so the, the tools that you get there,

I think the freelance economy
provides more options than,

traditional companies and
enterprises and firms provide.

because those, those employment
structures, I came from big four, it was,

you know, work two years, you get
promoted to work for another two years,

get promoted and yada, yada, yada,
it's a very much the Deloitte way.

Here's the fine pathway. Again,

like that's fitting a round peg in
a square hole. And, and so in the,

in the freelance economy, part of it
could be Mitchell, like, you know,

you want a full-time job and then have
a side hustle that's choice, you know,

or it could be that you just want to
freelance the entire time and, you know,

spend more time at home with your
kids, right. That's choice as well.

And I think the freelance economy
specifically enables more pathways

towards that self-actualization.

So you keep going back to
freedom of choice here,

and I totally get where
you're coming from. Like,

I can relate to the
ambiguity, flexibility,

freedom that comes with it, but, you know,

I want to take a step back and look at
this from a business perspective, again,

less other than individual
or business people,

all of our listeners here are accounting
and finance professionals for the most

part.

So when you give employees
this freedom of choice and

you allow, I guess, or buy
into this freelance economy,

I'm sure one of the first questions that
comes to mind for these listeners is

what's the ROI, what are the benefits
of this? So if you do get this,

buy-in from organizations and the
higher ups, the decision makers,

and they allow for this to happen,
you know, it becomes more popular.

What kind of benefits can these
organizations expect to reap from,

like I said, buying into this and
providing more choice, more freedoms.

Yeah. So I think there are three things.

It's one - speed, two -

quality, and three - ultimately cost.

The ROI on the cost part is a little
bit more difficult to pin down.

But if you think about companies,

they have problems
they're looking to solve.

They may not have it well defined,

but typically the historical
way of approaching a problem
is throwing a body at

it, right? Let's hire more people
and go solve this. However,

in the future of work,

I think it's very important for
companies to define specifically,

what are the problems they're trying
to solve and what are the success

metrics associated with those outcomes
and giving more clarity and definition

around that problem enables
you to shape it into a project.

And what I mean by that is
the project sort of like,

what I think about is
like the project script,

which also defines the success metrics
and what you need to do to achieve

that in doing that,

you can very easily tap
into an on-demand expert,

actually not very easily. And that's
where part of the problems exist today.

But if you have that defined
project and what it is,

you're trying to solve
what your problem is,

then you can connect with an on-demand
expert who can actually solve it.

For example,

let's say you've outgrown your
existing ERP system and you want

to, implement a new, more robust system.

That's a problem, right? That you
may face. So define it explicitly,

lay out what your
objectives and goals are,

and then finding the right subject
matter experts to go and do that.

That talent may not be in-house that
talent may not be within your network.

That talent may be within the
freelance economy on demand.

And so our entire mission is to enable
freelance or express that choice.

And in doing so enable companies to tap
into subject matter experts when and

where they need them. And that ultimately
leads back to the speed, quality,

and cost components that I highlighted
originally, because in the end,

if we can democratize access
to talent and opportunities,

in doing so, we're empowering both the
business professionals and the companies,

to realize that ROI.

You know we've talked a lot here about
the freelance economy and the future of

work, and you obviously have great
insight and, and, you know, are, you know,

making great moves here and being
adaptable and flexible and agile.

So just, I want to give you an opportunity
to close out the conversation here.

Are there any other points or,
you know, future predictions,

whatever you want to call it,

something that you see coming down
the road for the future of finance?

Well, I think it's three things
that we kind of covered, you know,

well first thank you all for your time
and thank you, Mitchell for hosting.

And I think to summarize, there are
three key points that we covered.

And the third one I'll expand on a
little bit more. One is there's a,

there's a mass change in worker
preferences as it's evolving before our

eyes.

And now that business professionals have
gotten a whiff of what working remotely

looks like, because
they're forced to do so,

can't put that genie back in the bottle.

So that's one number two
is companies must, I think,

rethink how work is
done and adapt to worker

preference changes so
that they can access,

the highest quality talent when and
where they weren't. Right. And have,

better outcomes, speedier
outcomes at lower costs.

So that's number two.
And then three is the,

I think there's this great
unlock of business professionals

that we, we didn't have
a chance to truly unpack.

I think we started to allude allude to it,

but choice is a really
difficult thing to nail down

and specifically call out what is the
pathway and deductive reasoning around

accomplishing that. And I, you know,

I brought it back to the
business professional
hierarchy of needs in the end.

I think the future of work is one
in which people are comfortable

leaving full-time jobs and
expressing their talents and

their skills on their own terms. You know,

I don't think we we've
seen like, you know,

those great resignation is
what it's called right now.

How are those people working in the
future is a big question mark, I think 5,

10 years down the road,

the number of skilled professionals,

business professionals at firms at
big companies within the finance

and accounting industry is going to be
significantly lower as I would say my,

bigger projection, which I think we can
unpack a little bit more if you want.

Yeah. I mean, I'd be happy to hear more
if you'd like to share that, you know,

how do you see that unfolding?

So I'll just use my personal
anecdotes and background. I mean,

look like I was at Deloitte,

and at the big four and you know,

what I wanted to accomplish and the
pathways of competition that were

narrow. you know, I've
used the analogy of,

putting a round peg in a square
hole multiple times here,

but I think that was the
case and leaving the,

the big four and the safety
net of income predictability,

knowing what your future looks
like, pathways to growth,

that's all very well laid out
and explicitly articulated,

leaving that,

especially for somebody who's
conservative and risk averse and going

out on your own or starting
your own firm or freelancing or

whatever it may be that that choice
you're trying to pursue is frankly

terrifying. Right? It's it couldn't be
more scary, especially for, you know,

a risk averse demographic.

and so in this future of work
that we're kind of talking about

that choice is at the forefront.

It is something that today is a
gating mechanism in the future,

I think is an opportunity.
And specifically,

if people feel like they have the

safety net and comfortability to go
pursue work on their own terms, however,

that may be,

then I think there will be a great
shift away from full-time employment and

more towards freelance, you know,
fractional part-time on demand,

whatever it may be.

But that is the gating mechanism today.

And I think part of what is
holding back, finance, accounting,

business professionals from
pursuing work on their own terms.

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