HR is paramount to any organization and whilst they are at times unfortunately maybe seen as a ‘admin function’, HR is actually the back bone of the organization, in fact HR builds the organization from the ground up, supporting retention, internal mobility, expansion and overall looking after the reputation of the business.
In the banking and fintech world there will be plenty of challenges from security to digitalization, but without painting too much of a ‘doom and gloom’ picture, HR will also face many challenges too.
The skill gap being an obvious place to start, in particular focusing on cyber, Frost and Sullivan have forecasted a 1.8 million shortage in cyber specialists by 2022, with businesses still favoring ‘hands on experience’ and ‘qualifications’ over accelerated training programmes or internal training. Business must look at ways to develop their teams internally, especially for hard to fill roles.
Mid to Senior Level Management is the next crisis and this stems from the recession that started in 2008, many people losing their jobs in financial sectors and those who were thinking of starting a career in the sector found the prospects less attractive. Companies must look at ways to make their packages competitive and consider internal management programmes.
Understanding the job brief is paramount to identifying and attracting the best possible talent, with new roles being ‘invented’ at a pace where often those who are tasked to find talent do not necessarily understand the requirements of the role, furthermore in bigger companies the specialist in a particular department will not be the initial CV reviewer meaning that the right talent could be overseen. Agencies and Recruiters have a hard job keeping up with every advancing technology and new openings, meaning roles will remain vacant for a much longer period of time, which could be crucial to fill, an example being cybersecurity.
Once a position has been filled, the next job is to retain the talent, which is an ever more growing challenge, with multiple attractive propositions on the market and a shortage of talent. Linkedin in 2018 surveyed approximately 3000 professionals and found that 65% people would not stay at an organization for a lower pay grade than their competitors and 70% would leave a current employer if there was a bad workplace culture. Employees however would remain if they had a sense of belonging (46%), benefits over perks (44%) i.e. private healthcare over free food or games rooms. Adequate support and leadership were surprisingly not as critical to employees (36%).
From a start-up perspective, sometimes expansions happen rapidly both internationally and overseas, but companies are pushing the ‘hire button’ without adequate structure, leadership and tools. Excel spreadsheets and reporting to a CEO is fine when the team is small, but when it grows these considerations are vital to retention and getting the best out of the business.
