The challenge of attracting and retaining the best new talent is tougher than ever. Facing an uncertain labor market, 76 percent of financial services executives see talent shortages as a threat to their continued growth, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ annual CEO survey.
“Unfortunately, too many banks are relying on the same traditional methods
of attracting and finding new talent”
– Dan Putney, Managing Director, Finastra, cited by American Banker Association
Today’s future-focused banks and credit unions are seeking new strategies to find and keep talented professionals who will excel in today’s rapidly changing financial work environment.
The good news is there are new, easy-to-use tools specifically designed for financial institutions that simplify the hiring experience while pinpointing high-caliber candidates. These cost-effective resources eliminate delays, expand access to qualified candidates, offer an engaging candidate experience, and accurately identify the best new talent.
Check out these 3 opportunities for streamlining and improving hiring and staff development processes.
#1 RECRUITING:
USE INTERACTIVE JOB PREVIEWS
To compete for the best new talent, today’s financial centers understand the importance of sharing their story and marketing their employer brand. Through engaging screening tools like interactive job previews, banks and credit unions can highlight their vision and values and share why their organization is a great place to work. Basic screening questions to ensure candidates meet the minimum requirements can be added to job previews. These can potentially replace cumbersome, time-consuming job applications that result in high candidate drop rates.
Well-designed previews can boost candidate completion rates to more than 90% – keeping the best candidates in your pipeline. An additional benefit is creating realistic job expectations. For instance, traditional teller roles have transitioned to universal banker positions, but do your job candidates know that? The last thing you want to hear as new hires walk out the door is, “Wow, I didn’t realize how much this job involved,” or “I didn’t know I was expected to sell.” More and more financial centers are providing their candidates with a clear and realistic preview of the job so there are no surprises down the road.
#2 HIRING:
PINPOINT TALENT FOR MULTICHANNEL TOUCHPOINTS
The most successful financial centers understand the diverse talents needed to succeed, including the technical and service skills needed to respond to customers’ increasingly complex needs. They measure these attributes directly in the hiring process and strategically place new hires based on their unique skill sets. Digital tools are available to measure the skills and attributes of traditional roles like tellers and financial center managers. Banks and credit unions also have access to new technologies that pinpoint employees who will excel when providing digital customer support via video or chat.
Financial centers who opt for dropping standards in order to fill more seats will soon find they are refilling those same seats over and over again. On the other hand, organizations that use pre-employment assessments to evaluate job-specific skills and attributes have a clear advantage in identifying high-potential candidates who can hit the ground running.
In addition, the right pre-hire tools expand your access to the best talent by enabling recruiters to look beyond their traditional talent pools and consider highly capable candidates that may not match the traditional hiring profile.
#3 DEVELOPMENT:
GROW FUTURE LEADERS WITH SIMULATION
Another key challenge for any modern financial center is to identify and prepare the next generation of leaders. Since many financial center managers are nearing retirement, it’s more critical than ever to identify and groom your next generation of leaders. While a common practice is simply promoting high-performing employees into management roles, the reality is that many of these employees neither want nor have the attributes to succeed in a leadership role.
Successful financial centers recognize this and use job-specific assessments like simulations to assess leadership potential and chart out a clear path for career development. The best simulations not only identify readiness but also provide a tailored developmental path to help employees reach the next level.
“The role of HR has never been more important . . .
HR needs to upskill itself on digital tools to be able to better serve its customers”
– Julia Lamm, a workforce strategy partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) cited by SHRM.
By leveraging new digital technologies, financial services organizations have the tools they need to attract and engage the best talent while identifying and developing their future leaders.
DIGITAL HIRING AND DEVELOPMENT RESOURCES
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Ask Joe!
Joe LaTorre serves as Director of Innovation for Employment Technologies. He holds an M.S. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and has more than 30 years of national and international consulting experience. If you have a question about bank or credit union hiring and development, you can reach him at 888.332.0648.