The Banking and Financial Services (BFS) industry has suffered from legacy technologies and skills gaps. According to a World Economic Forum report in 2020, 74% of companies cannot find the right skills.
Evolving customer habits, cost-related pressures, the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, and shifting regulatory policies drove transformation in the industry. Many existing roles are becoming obsolete.
Despite the vocalization for digital transformation in the BFS industry, few companies have led successful transformation efforts that genuinely offer value to their organization and enhance customer experience.
Acquiring new talent alone cannot close the talent gap presented by the digital transformation initiatives. Talent management must identify the required skills and then impart them to their workforce.
The Increasing Demand for Skills
The new workforce in the BFS industry should be productive with a sleek ability to execute. Still, talent management leaders are not equipped to deal with the high-paced environment, resulting in higher attrition rates and becoming a bottleneck for the company’s growth.
Recent research indicated that 40% of organizations would likely use artificial intelligence than human resources to streamline productivity. Without reskilling and upskilling, the employees at the mid-management level in the BFS industry could find it challenging to adapt to AI.
Like the other industries, the BFS industry needs a workforce that understands the nuances of the business. However, the lack of a reskilling culture has led to the growing gap. The roles in cybersecurity, data analysis, design, and website algorithms have been understaffed and overworked.
Responding to Ensuing Talent Disruption in the BFS Industry
- 17% of BFS industry CEOs say their organization has improved workers’ and leaders’ knowledge of technology and its implications, compared to 20% of other industry CEOs.
- 24% say that their reskilling/upskilling programs have led to greater innovation and an accelerated digital transformation, compared to 30% of CEOs across industries.
- 16% reported their talent management has reduced skills gaps and mismatches, compared to 20% of all CEOs.
In Draup’s research on various roles in the BFS industry, the Financial Reporting Manager role came into focus, for which many organizations compete to acquire talent. The demand grew by 13% in 2022, with 70,000 openings out of the 1.4 million jobs.
Preparing periodic financial statements, preparing business activity reports, financial statements, and forecasts, and analyzing market trends were among the core skills. They must also have analytics & visualization skills, functional and collaborative skills, and management skills like strategic decisions and solving complex problems.
Talent management must introduce a comprehensive L&D/reskilling program to upskill individuals. Clerks and Reconciliation Officers have a high affinity for disruption while also considering Reporting Analysts, Loan Mortgage, and Accounting Specialists.
The below infographic indicates which roles talent management can reskill to help them level up to the role of Financial Reporting Manager, with the possibility of progressing to various management roles while mitigating any adverse financial drain to the company.
Synchronizing Process Transformation and Talent Transformation
Research says that redeploying the workforce after reskilling is 20% more cost-effective than ‘hiring and firing.’ Investment in people builds a healthy employee value proposition. Here are the four best talent management practices:
Bridging the skills gap between rising and declining skills
Developing future-ready front and middle office employees require a focus on rising skills such as digital sales, data analysis, and business intelligence. Talent management must equip IT employees with Python, Docker, node.js, and machine learning skills.
They must analyze the relationship between the current and future roles. As per a report, front office roles, cash management, and call center support are declining while digital sales, investment banking, social media, and digital marketing are rising. By building upon adjacent skills, employees can be upskilled and reskilled with in-demand skills.
Calibrating roles with future skills
Banks traditionally fill a job with a requisition and a job description, and they hire from within the industry. There is an opportunity to calibrate and consider emerging skills outside the industry to fulfill skill requirements.
This starts with observing emerging skills in each role, seeking relevant skills in the new hires while reskilling and upskilling current employees. In the BFS industry, for instance, product managers need user research, rapid prototyping, and data analysis skills. These skills are also available in the tech sector candidates.
Adopting a hiring-for-potential mindset
Talent management must analyze talent with the potential to learn in-demand skills externally or internally. For instance, candidates with Java, R, and C++ will likely learn Python. Mixing these candidates among those with knowledge of Python will triple the pool triples and save the acquisition cost.
The BFS industry must draw from a larger talent pool and become diverse to continue its momentum, considering the role the BFS industry plays in global economic recovery.
Building a scalable learning infrastructure
Talent management could invest in infrastructure and systems with a central library to offer online and offline training. This could contain several elements, such as the skills inventory and an internal talent market to encourage mobility and reskilling.
A European bank built an academy, migrated their learning materials, and delivered them through digital channels. They made learning easy by transforming legacy systems, including replacing older two-hour videos with shorter two- to four-minute instructional videos.
The reskilling tool also matched videos with employees moving to new roles. The tool allowed the selection of employees based on skills and various backgrounds. This enabled talent management to select targeted trainees and assign them to the proper training.
Draup conducted a comprehensive analysis of various roles in the BFS industry. This report informs about the talent size of the sector, growth of future jobs, gender diversity, location intelligence, and reskilling strategies of roles with an affinity for disruption.
Draup is an AI-backed talent intelligence platform supporting all business verticals in reskilling and upskilling initiatives. With deep insights into the talent market, talent management can identify reskilling opportunities and track skill-based certification programs.