Banking operations and processes are complicated. With the introduction of every new type of technology, the banking sector is frequently rearranging itself to adjust to the changes.

Especially after the pandemic, operations in banking became largely digitalized, leaving an entire workforce struggling to adopt remote-friendly solutions with very little training.

The banking sector has woken up to the challenge now, and there are countless training programs for the banking sector you can incorporate to prepare your workforce better.

This blog takes you on a walkthrough of how banking training programs can be used to help banking professionals excel in their fields.

Bank Training Programs: Key Aspects for an Excellent Workforce

According to McKinsey research, reskilling and training your employees in banking was found to be 20% more cost-effective than the “hire-and-fire” model. One of the major reasons is that it reduces the total number of new recruits and layoffs.

It is now more important than ever to assist the upskilling, reskilling, and training of your workforce in banking with novel methodologies using the latest technology at your disposal. Discussed in detail below are five effective ways using which your bank training programs can be more impactful.

1. Strategic, Proactive Upskilling

Being strategic about deploying training programs for the banking sector helps to align the results better with institution needs. Therefore, it helps to conduct a needs assessment before initiating any upskilling program, especially in technology.

For example, remote assistance-based training would make more sense for financial advisers as opposed to bank tellers. On the other hand, a bank teller would benefit more from enterprise digital tools that let them automate clerical tasks like recording transactions.

A proactive strategy-building session that helps inform and design the training subject matter based on the various roles at the bank would make all the difference.

Effectiveness and takeaway from the training would improve significantly if it is targeted towards fulfilling pressing needs and solving pain points.

The learning objectives need to be aligned with desired results.

2. Skill Matching and Reskilling

Reskilling is associated with helping existing employees fulfill new roles they haven’t handled before by providing them with training. That said, it can be streamlined and made more efficient so that your workforce can reskill with ease and fill new roles seamlessly.

The second consideration, thus, is to assess where your workforce already stands. An exercise of skill-matching is in order.

Skill-matching allows you to shortlist the professionals with skillsets closest to the new skill required, which helps you significantly reduce the training duration and effort needed for it to be a success.

For example, bank tellers already deal with a surge of customers every day – they can be reskilled into being customer representatives without much input.

The customer engagement capacity already exists in bank tellers, which can be polished and reapplied to the new role they fill.

3. Invest in Learning Infrastructure

As banks have come to need feedback training because of technology, they can leverage technology to aid them in training their personnel right.

A robust technological infrastructure can provide the foundation a good bank training program needs to succeed in the following manner:

• Building digital resource libraries that contain learning materials free for access to the employees who need assistance with their new roles. The library can contain videos, whitepapers, eBooks, guidelines, protocols, etc. – any information that is needed to assume the new duties better.
• Technological tools can help match employees to new roles during internal hiring to help speed the process up and reduce manual delays.
• Technology also helps design the training modules and content through digital publishing tools that help with quick creation, distribution, and performance assessments of the participants.

4. Inculcate a Learning Culture

The importance of creating a homogenous, learning-oriented culture at a banking institution isn’t easy. Given that the employees must first familiarize themselves with the new role and environment before they can resume work, it is critical to establish a culture of active learning.

All the external means of provisioning a learning environment are important, but inculcating a positive motivation to learn new skills is the way to derive maximum effectiveness from bank training programs.

One way to do that is by adopting immersive learning experiences, capability building, and encouraging and uplifting brand communication. It helps to establish a common ground where peers recognize each other as fellow learners and promote the culture.

Brand communications can be scheduled over enterprise communication channels for good outreach.

5. Encourage Leadership

Every effort must be driven by a spearhead for it to follow a set direction, or all efforts would go astray. All feedback training sessions should have a designated talent nurturer or a leader of some sort who drives engagement and keeps things moving.

Assuming new roles and responsibilities can be strenuous and daunting for the employees, and the learning leadership should encourage open conversations to ease the process. They should act as bridges between the roles that guide the employees and equip them with the necessary resources to fill the new positions.

These leadership champions should also communicate to the employees the significance of the reskilling or upskilling strategy so that the implications are clear.

It helps employees anchor the learning with organizational needs rather than brush it aside as “just another training.”

Concluding Note

Banking is the one sector that has had to reimagine itself completely after the pandemic. Since financials are something that customers don’t take lightly, the journey has been difficult – especially on the workforce front, where massive reskilling, internal hiring, and upskilling have happened.

That said, the stellar resilience that bank training programs give the sector is undoubtedly obvious. With easy digital publishing solutions like Hurix, it is possible to mass-distribute feedback training to the enterprise using a central dashboard.

There are countless other ways that such platforms have helped make a better workforce out of banking. To learn more, visit Hurix.