As with nearly every industry, banking is undergoing a significant and rapid digital transformation that is impacting all areas of operations. According to our latest research, banks must do three things to successfully navigate that transformation:
- Adopt the latest technologies.
- Foster the right culture.
- Build a digital-savvy workforce.
The last one is particularly crucial because digital transformation is changing the skill sets that banks require of their employees to carry their institutions into the future. But building that workforce hasn’t been easy because of skills gaps created by the increasing adoption of banking technology.
In fact, data from PricewaterhouseCoopers 22nd Annual Global CEO Survey shows that 80 percent of CEOs in the banking and capital markets industry believe skills shortages are a threat to their ability to evolve quickly.
To address this issue and build a future-ready workforce, banks must focus on recalibrating roles for the future, invest in the learning and development of their employees, and make a shift to potential-first hiring.
Banks need to recalibrate roles
Digitization is driving an evolution in the roles banks need their talent to fill and the skills needed to succeed in those roles. For example, the role of a bank teller is evolving into the role of a universal banker. While some of the skills are transferable, bank tellers need to develop new skills to succeed as universal bankers, including consumer lending, marketing, event planning, financial analysis, and cross-selling, as demonstrated in the report.
The challenges for HR teams are defining new roles and identifying the new capabilities employees need to fill those roles.
AI-backed talent management technology helps them do both by using historical data and predictive analytics to show how current and future roles are related. HR can then recalibrate skills requirements to fit those new models and either hire new talent or invest in the skills development of current employees to fill those positions.
Banks must invest in employee upskilling and reskilling
The unavoidable consequence of this role recalibration to keep up with digital transformation is an exacerbation of skills shortages. Upskilling and reskilling employees is key to closing the skills gap that is widening with digitization.
This effort starts with identifying the roles that employees are most suited to transition into, and providing them the opportunities to learn new skills. The most effective way to approach this task is by analyzing skills adjacencies, write Han Hu, Quentin Jadoul, and Angelika Reich at McKinsey & Company. They say this entails finding people in roles that are disappearing who have skills that closely align with those needed in roles that are rising. This approach enables banks to more quickly mold a future-ready workforce.
Talent intelligence tools help HR teams by identifying those skills adjacencies and using them to develop employee career paths that tie current and future skills together. HR can use that information to guide learning programs that enable employees to quickly upskill and reskill so they are prepared for those new roles.
Hire for potential
Another key strategy for building a digital-savvy future workforce is hiring based on potential. When taking this approach, HR teams focus on finding candidates who would be a good fit for the organization and who have a good foundation for success, instead of focusing on role-related experience that may become obsolete in the near future.
The greatest advantage to this hiring approach is that it widens the pool from which to pull talent best poised to succeed. AI-powered talent intelligence technology is particularly powerful in this function, using predictive analytics to forecast employee success in developing the necessary skills to perform effectively in various roles.
As HR teams at institutions in the banking industry face the challenge of closing skills gaps created by digital transformations, they can rely on AI to help them design the jobs of the future, develop their talent to perform in the roles, and hire for potential instead of experience. These strategies pave the way for success in building a future-ready workforce.
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