3 aspects of creating a positive employee experience in financial services

The global economy faces uncertainties, and it is tough to predict the future. The pandemic is still in control, and new variations of Covid-19 destabilize the reality, causing that change is the only sure thing. The financial sector emerged unscathed from previous turbulence. As in the other industries, banks and financial services had to swiftly adapt to the new situation, responding to changing needs of their customers and employees. It turned out that taking care of the needs of both groups is equally important to maintain credibility, trust, and marketing competitiveness. Why employee experience in financial services is so important and how can you create a positive one?

The technological revolution, structural changes, new models of work, and a greater need for personalized services – are some of the challenges faced by financial organizations at the beginning of 2022. At these precarious times, keeping the internal stability by taking care of employees’ experiences became a priority. In financial services, it is not anymore just a gesture of goodwill or a trend, but a necessity. Not changing attitudes towards sincere concern for employees and their needs may have very serious consequences. Financial income is not enough in the new reality. Every contact point between an employee and an organization counts. 

Creating a positive employee experience in the financial services 

Despite the turbulence linked to the pandemic, the situation of many banks is stable. The prognosis for the whole industry is rather optimistic, but it doesn’t mean a lack of difficulties. The rampant inflation affecting the entire world economy, growing threat of cybercrime, changing expectations of customers and investors, or lack of specialists in the labor market are just examples of challenges. Only the strongest organizations will cope with them. The move towards providing employees with a predictable internal work environment and strengthening trust in the employer seems to be the right thing to do. Especially that companies that invest in the experience of employees at the highest level achieve four times higher profit per one employee than those that do not.¹ 

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 1️⃣ How to communicate in financial services? 

Communication should be always based on respect and understanding. The feeling of belonging to a team is one of the most significant aspects affecting employees’ engagement. All employees, regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, or position, should feel that they are an important part of the organization. They have the right to express their opinion and to be heard. Taking care of the experience of employees in the financial services should therefore consider: 

✔ Openness to dialogue and employees’ feedback 

Top-down and one-way internal communication is becoming a relic of the past. Building openness to dialogue and feedback must concern the entire organization at every level. The pandemic has become an unexpected ally in this matter, which forced banks to create digital workplaces and implement tools that facilitate two-way communication. The so-called employee experience platforms, technologically advanced intranets, not only allow reaching stationary and remote employees. They also enable them to react immediately to posted content, collect opinions in surveys and analyze their interactions in real-time. Until now, the employees could express their opinion only during meetings with leaders if they were open to dialogue and in surveys carried out at specified intervals. To make employees feel a significant part of the team and the entire financial services institution, their opinion must be noticed and considered – there are no shortcuts here. 

✔ Social learning networking 

In hybrid working, the possibility of social connections, meetings, opinions, and knowledge exchange became very limited. This is a serious threat to financial services, where employees’ knowledge constitutes a significant aspect of creating customer experiences. The possibility of sharing knowledge and supporting each other also gives them the feeling of being an expert, someone important, appreciated, and needed, regardless of their position. Social learning networking integrates employees, helps them get to know each other, and builds relationships. This improves their engagement level and gives them the feeling that they can have an impact on their department and the entire institution. Modern employee experience platforms allow for quick access to an advanced knowledge base. They are also a good knowledge exchange and communication tool. 

✔ Change of leadership style 

Leadership and management practices determine employees’ sense of belonging to the team and engagement. Open-minded leaders can be crucial for improving the experiences of the employees of the financial services, as they are used to the traditional management style. Examples of many organizations have shown that strengthening certain leadership qualities helps adjust to a wide variety of customers, markets, ideas, and talents. 
Each of us carries prejudices. Discovering them and becoming aware of them is constant self-improvement that can bring extraordinary results. The talent management policy of the organization, succession, and recruitment of leaders should be entirely consistent with this approach, and the example should always come from above. 

✔ Taking care of employees’ needs 

Gallup’s specialists say: „Take care of your people, and they’ll take care of business”, proving that employees who feel good are more motivated and stronger. They define well-being as satisfaction in 5 aspects of life: career, social, financial, physical, and community. People who are functioning very well in those five areas are even 81% less likely to start looking for a new job and 41% less likely to take sick leave. The pandemic has made all employers aware that they can be a powerful driving force in shaping employees’ experiences on these 5 levels. Regular contact and controlling employees’ needs is the key that allows them to quickly react, modify strategies, and optimize all stages of an employee’s journey. 

2️⃣ How to support development and knowledge exchange in financial services?

Knowledge is the basis of functioning in every financial institution. Therefore, it should be the main element of their organizational culture. Employees’ experience in this area cannot remain neglected. A well-tailored training program, access to modern databases, AI-based search engines, consistent and transparent internal communication, or the systemic support for social learning are not only to motivate to the acquisition and sharing of knowledge but to facilitate it. This should make employees receive concrete benefits. 

Winning, retaining talents, and succession are significant parts of creating positive experiences in matters of L&D (Learning and Development). Therefore, some financial services are already taking a step further, moving from the traditional model based on a career ladder. The assumption that climbing the career ladder is the goal of all employees doesn’t allow them to meet their needs. According to Deloitte, the future of financial services that want to provide employee experience at the highest level is to provide employees with a modular development strategy. This includes, among others, the possibility of taking up various professional roles, frequent retraining, and constant improvement of qualifications. This approach strengthens the sense of value and autonomy because it considers the individual needs, goals, and skills of the employee. 

3️⃣ How to establish psychological safety?

Making employees feel safe in areas of physical and mental health at every stage of their professional journey has never been so significant as in times of a pandemic. Direct contact with the client, which has been the basis of the functioning of financial services, can now be a source of danger and stress. Remote work can also induce a sense of danger and stress due to the limitation of social contacts, the lack of conditions for working from home, or difficulties in reconciling private and professional roles. Therefore, building employee experience should be based not only on ensuring all safety measures but also on reducing stress in other areas. McKinsey specialists advise financial services leaders to follow a few principles when caring about security: 

✅ put health and safety first, 
✅ take care not only of employees but also of their relatives, 
✅ propose care on a larger scale than before, extend benefits to mental health or job placement programs for relatives who have lost their jobs because of the pandemic or its consequences, 
✅ run empathetic, two-way communication – using, for example, pulsating tests to check the well-being of employees, 
✅ ensure full transparency of completed, suspended, or unfinished projects, which will not only strengthen confidence in banks as employers but keep leaders from making hard-to-deliver promises. 

The sense of security can have a different meaning, depending on the mode of work (digital/stationery). It varies from generation to generation. Considering the needs of all groups of employees and applying the principles of respectful communication and flexible solutions will allow financial services to build positive employee experiences at the highest level. Especially, since banks are still perceived as hierarchical institutions where you have to adapt and follow orders. Pre-pandemic research in the UK showed that a third of financial workers felt unable to express themselves freely in the workplace. Among employees under 25, only 36% of the respondents declared freedom of expression. Such an environment is not conducive to building a psychological sense of security and trust. It is high time to focus on the experiences of employees that will allow their employers to be perceived as trustworthy, caring, empathetic, and worthy of engagement. 

Activities that affect employee experience require system solutions and investments in modern technologies. Forrester predicts that technology spending in banks will hit double-digit growth in 2022. A large part of these investments will be related to talent management and employee experience activities, which will strengthen their competitiveness in the labor market. Until a few years ago, leaders of financial services admitted that their employees showed much greater digital maturity than their organizations, which could not have a positive effect on the digital employee experience. Currently, there is no room for such errors. The digital maturity of an organization is its “to be or not to be”. Taking care of experience in this area can only strengthen financial institutions as employers and service providers, which will benefit employees, customers, and the organizations themselves. 

¹ Jacob Morgan, The Employee Experience Advantage: How to Win the War for Talent by Giving Employees the Workspaces they Want, the Tools they Need, and a Culture They Can Celebrate, 2017 

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At Workai, we believe that a positive employee experience influences employees’ engagement, quality of customer service, and company profits. That is why we use personalized solutions in our products. A technologically advanced knowledge base with an intuitive AI-based search engine supports financial services employees in reaching the desired information as quickly as possible. As a result, customer service can be smoother and generate positive customer experiences. 

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