Keeping finance teams motivated during uncertain times

In February 2023, Forbes named the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) “one of America’s best banks”. A month later, the world watched as it collapsed.

Rising interest rates turned into sudden losses, leading depositors to withdraw over $40 billion in a day, leaving the bank with a negative cash balance. The next day, it shut down. Over 8,500 people saw their lives take an unexpected turn, and, over two years later, the financial sector is still not out of the woods.

There are renewed concerns that other banks might face the same fate as SVB, so it should come as no surprise that, in times like these, financial teams’ morale is dropping. If you add in other factors like tight budgets, challenges in AI adoption, and geopolitical disturbances, CFOs have a real talent retention problem on their hands.

Talent concerns are nothing new in the financial sector. Deloitte’s CFO Signals quarterly reports show that, all throughout 2024, up to 47% of CFOs named employee retention and/or hiring as the most worrisome internal risk to their businesses. That number decreased slightly by the end of the year, but the report from Q1 2025 shows further concerns with employee engagement (50%) and work overload (45%). These, along with the quiet quitting phenomenon, burnout, and lack of trust in leadership, are all signs that your finance team’s morale is dipping.

The good news is that, even during uncertain times, when the ghost of SVB is still hanging over the financial sector, there are proven ways of motivating finance teams. In this article, we share expert insights and tactics that finance leaders can use to keep their people motivated.

More often than not, finance teams’ morale dips in times of uncertainty because people feel powerless. It’s one thing to know an organisation is going through challenges, but it’s a very different one to feel like there’s something they can do about it. If employees believe their hands are tied, then how can they trust that easier times lie ahead?

Finance leaders can start by empowering their teams to put plans into motion and showing confidence in their people’s capabilities.

Christian Moldenhauer, Managing Director & Founder at expertpowerhouse, argues that finance leaders should “give freedom to the team to experiment with solutions, but also not to force it on them.” This last part is important because you don’t want to overwhelm people or make them feel like they’re being set up to fail. Increased workload for existing employees is cited in Deloitte’s report as CFOs’ main concern related to work pipelines, so you should avoid that pitfall at all costs.

That being said, after you’ve identified who among your finance team will be motivated by taking on a new challenge and exploring their problem-solving skills, empower them to lead the way. You might find out-of-the-box solutions to challenges you wouldn’t have come up with otherwise.

Professional relationships are still human relationships and, as such, they thrive on honesty. When it comes to workplace uncertainty, there’s really no point in trying to keep information locked away from employees. Quite the opposite; transparent communication fosters trust, which in turn positively influences morale and helps finance teams stay resilient.

Results from Deloitte’s 2024 Global Human Capital Trends report show that 86% of employees and 74% of business leaders believe increasing trust and transparency between workers and the organisation is critically important for good workplace relationships.

Does this mean Finance leaders should communicate everything and anything to their teams? It depends on how they do it. Pretending all is well undermines trust, but if the only information you’re relaying is that times are hard and business is struggling, you might do more harm than good.

When it comes to certain issues, Didier Beltai-Menth, Senior Specialist Corporate Finance at Bayerische Landesbank, thinks “people tend to be a bit stressed besides the day-to-day business and day-to-day work”. If you add negative updates from managers and leaders on top of that, you’re bound to end up with an unmotivated team.

The key to keeping your finance team’s morale high during uncertain times is to give them the honest business context, while reframing it and focusing on the possible positive outcomes.

For Bastienne Föeller, CFO at TIS, the first thing is to openly acknowledge when times are hard. She explains: “Life is not always on the sunny side. And it’s the same for businesses.” However, the next step should always be to reframe things in a positive way.

For example, CFOs can ask themselves, “If we have uncertainties, if we have challenges, what is the thing that we can learn [and] take away [from it]? What’s the resilience like?” Those learnings are precisely what can then be used to empower teams and have them be an active part in solving challenges, as mentioned above.

Empathy is not just a buzzword. A study by McKinsey & Company reveals that, for employees, the main reasons for quitting a job are related to feelings of being undervalued by their organisations or managers and not belonging at work. On the other hand, leading with compassion and showing honest concern for employees’ well-being is linked with improved motivation, better performance, and increased talent retention.

So, what does empathetic leadership look like, exactly?

In addition to giving employees autonomy to experiment and openly acknowledging challenges, frequent check-ups on how they’re feeling and where their motivation stands come into play here. During these conversations, CFOs should aim to show empathy with people’s struggles and worries and offer their support through hard times.

However, this is just the starting point. Actions speak louder than words, so when leaders are faced with low morale in their finance team, they should provide visibility over their own work and the steps they’re taking to mitigate employees’ concerns.

Additionally, and in the spirit of fostering people’s sense of belonging, CFOs can, at this point, open up the floor to their team’s feedback and include it in the action plan of maintaining business stability. And while they’re at it, this is a great opportunity to show recognition for your team’s work and resilience.

Visible leadership is about showing up, being empathetic, spotlighting progress and giving praise where praise is due. As Bastienne Föeller mentions, there’s always something positive to be found in the midst of adversity, so celebrate it whenever you can.

Unlike customer-facing teams like sales and customer success, who have actual KPIs to show for their achievements — closing a certain number of new deals or reducing customer churn by a specific percentage, for example — finance teams’ achievements and contributions to the business often go overlooked. That, paired with the pressure of working through uncertain times, is reason enough for people to lack motivation.

Celebrating wins, no matter how big or small they are, is key to keeping finance teams’ morale up.

Nicolas Boucher, Founder of the AI Finance Club, explains that leaders can recognise success by celebrating “when [the team] goes over a challenge, delivers the budget, or finds savings”. Back when he was still leading finance teams, Boucher would do this by having everyone clap whenever someone finished a report, for example. However, people weren’t used to this. Nicolas recalls that, at times, he really had to push his team to take a minute to recognise and appreciate each other’s work.

Boucher stresses that, in finance, “there is so much pressure, there is so much change. If we don’t get that energy within us, then people will be really tired, go home, and won’t want to come back the day after.” So, establishing these daily celebration rituals is essential to boosting employees’ energy and motivation.

The way you celebrate your team’s wins is up to you. It can be a round of applause after closing a budget, or something completely different. Just make sure you involve your team in deciding on a type of celebration that works and feels comfortable for everyone.

Team morale is not just a nice-to-have. Rather, it can make all the difference in your team’s performance, in people’s resilience through tiring times, and in talent retention, which is so often a challenge for finance leaders. But it doesn’t have to be.

By acknowledging reality and reframing negativity into opportunity, empowering employees to take initiative, leading with honesty and empathy, and celebrating even the smallest wins, you’re one step ahead of the game in making sure your team’s morale doesn’t fall. And a little goes a long way. When times are tough, sometimes all it takes to motivate someone is a short conversation where you ask how they’re feeling, acknowledge their concerns, and offer your support.

Reading back on what happened to the Silicon Valley Bank, it’s only natural for feelings of uncertainty about the finance sector to resurface. Businesses can change from one moment to the next, and there’s only so much about it you can control. So focus on what you can: your team’s well-being and the practices you can implement to boost their motivation.