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Attensi white paper Belonging for professional services, cover showing a person wearing a VR headset

White paper

Belonging: Attract, train and retain an inspired workforce ready for the future

This insight paper brings together professional services firms, industry leaders, and extensive post-pandemic research to discuss the challenges facing the sector, identify future trends and share practical examples of how firms are facing this disruption head-on.

Team Attensi

Published · Updated

Join industry leaders who are changing the game with Attensi:

  • Hiscox
  • Zurich
  • Simon-Kucher
  • Accenture
  • KPMG
  • EQ

To find out more, download Attensi’s whitepaper. Inside you’ll find insights on:

  • Global disruption of the status quo: A global view of the sector and the trends driving disruption.
  • Evolving in the “Big Skills Shift”: How do businesses adapt quickly to attract and retain the right people?
  • Attracting talent: The power of training! An interview with UK National Accountancy Practice.
  • Retaining talent: Building gamified simulations into insurance training.
  • Culture and Leadership: How to change the game! An interview with an international law firm.
  • The future trends leading the way: Tech disruption, data led training and new ways of learning, find out what’s on the horizon for the professional services industry.
Download our white paper

Global disruption of the status quo

1 in 3
employers in the sector report skills shortages and struggle to recruit for highly skilled roles
90%
of firms reported increased operating, staff and recruitment costs in 2021 due to skills challenges
4 in 5
firms reported a reduction in productivity since introducing hybrid and remote working
7 in 10
employees in the sector feel confident about shifting to a new job

That pressure is reshaping what people expect from employers, too. 76% of lawyers say a lack of flexible working would make them consider a role or career shift within 18 months, and 89% of accountants say a company putting their team's wellbeing first is now a key factor when choosing a new employer — salary and a corner office are no longer enough on their own.

So how do firms adapt quickly enough to attract and retain the right people? We asked two professional services leaders exactly that.

Attracting talent

The power of training

The Head of People at a UK national accountancy firm told us the pandemic exposed just how far their training had to evolve — in-office programmes and on-the-job mentoring simply didn't translate to remote work, and productivity and graduate development both suffered.

"Alongside investment in their wellbeing, training and development came up as a top benefit and key driver for a career shift."

Their fix was to build bespoke development plans using digital tools, adding resilience training, digital onboarding and hybrid-working skills at every level — which has since helped both attrition and new-talent attraction. Getting people in the door is only half the job, though. Keeping them is where gamified simulation training really earns its place.

Retaining talent

Hiscox

Attensi worked with Hiscox to build a custom 3D simulation in just 10 weeks, giving underwriters a risk-free way to practice realistic scenarios — negotiating with brokers, assessing risk and making portfolio decisions — with 3D avatars standing in for colleagues and clients.

The result wasn't just a safer way to practice — it visibly changed how confident underwriters felt walking into real conversations.

Jo Muselle, Chief Underwriting Officer at Hiscox, puts it simply:

"They love playing the games, clearly learning as they go."
60 → 3 hrs
time to competence, down from 60 hours to 3 in bitesized, focused training
90%
improvement in retained knowledge from first attempt to certified pass
70%
reduction in the post-programme failure rate

Culture & leadership

How to change the game

An HR Director at an international law firm told us real culture isn't values on a wall — it's instilled through how new managers are trained before they ever lead a team, with decision-making scenarios built around the firm's core values and tied directly to their KPIs and appraisals.

"We spend a lot of time training our teams and new recruits to help them understand and buy into our purpose and mission, but ultimately, it's our leaders who drive this for us."

That investment paid off when the pandemic tested every firm's culture at once — remote working stripped away the daily visible example leadership used to set, and it was the firms with that training already embedded who held their culture together.

The future

Training trends leading the way

"Flexibility is now an expectation rather than a perk."

Edward Short
Head of Professional and Financial Services, Attensi

Three shifts are shaping where training goes next. Data-led training will move the goal from completion to continuous, measurable improvement — "practice makes perfect" becomes a KPI, not a slogan. New ways of learning will meet Millennials and Gen Z where they already are: bitesized, self-paced, picked up and put down around real life. And tech disruption keeps accelerating both, as data and analytics increasingly separate the firms that thrive from those that don't.

Attensi's simulations put people in true-to-life scenarios so they can try, fail and repeat — building the muscle memory and confidence to perform when it counts for real.

Download our white paper

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