By Kurt Dyer, Banking Lead, Americas, Newgen Software

The year 2021 is being called the year of the “Great Resignation,” a phenomenon signified by the historic “quit rates,” as reported by The Labor Department in the US. The total number of quits, i.e., the employee-initiated job separations, reached 4.5 million by the end of November 2021.

For finance and insurance, the quit rates in November were reported at 1.4%, after a peak of 1.7% in September 2021. While there’s a direct impact on the organizational efficiency across the board, such attrition is much higher for knowledge-driven roles in banks and credit unions, pronounced by the difficulty in replenishing such talent due to prevalent skill gaps in the market.

The “Great Resignation” is an indicator of a larger shift

The talent or skill gap is not new for banks and credit unions. It is one of the key ongoing operational challenges for them. However, the “Great Resignation” signifies a much larger shift in the way work happens.

On the one hand, customers are expecting a better experience at every stage of their interactions with a bank or a credit union. On the other hand, the employees also expect their employing organization to enable and empower them to perform better. Employees are becoming more aware of the opportunities beyond the workplace. They are looking at career decisions beyond money and growth, towards better job satisfaction and a more flexible lifestyle.

Hence, as organizations tackle the “Great Resignation” to mitigate its immediate negative impact, they must also look at the broader picture and take transformative steps to lead into the future.

From the “Great Resignation” to the “Great Reform”

Some of the immediate steps that the banks and credit unions are taking are around mitigation against the loss of talent. Prima facie, this is a case for more automation, which is to replace human effort with automated tasks and activities.

However, the strategic imperatives facing the financial institutions are rather diverse. The leaders of tomorrow would become so by attracting and retaining skilled talent by improving the employee experience and overall work paradigm. This requires more than mere automation. A holistic digital-driven reform is the need of the hour.

Banks and credit unions can use a four-pronged approach to convert the “Great Resignation” to an impetus for a “Great Reform.” Here is how.

1. Automate mundane and routine tasks to bridge the talent gap

Admittedly, many frontline and knowledge workers spend a significant amount of time on rudimentary tasks and activities. These tasks, such as data collection, entry, review, classification, and tabulation do not add value to their roles. Rather these activities take away their time from performing the associated core tasks. Not only are these rudimentary tasks major timewasters, but they are also a key source of human errors, fixing which requires another set of manual effort.

Advanced digital technologies, such as robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), and digital process automation, offer opportunities to drastically cut down employee time on such mundane tasks while improving the quality of outcomes. Automated data extraction from documents and media, auto-classification of incoming documents and information therein, and automated routing and reviews are some of the low-hanging fruits for financial institutions.

Consequently, better utilization of skilled resources helps bridge the talent gap on a sustainable basis. Moreover, this allows organizations to accomplish an increased number of tasks and activities without increasing the number of employees. In turn, this results in a lower cost of operation, enabling employers to remunerate knowledge workers better.

2. Improve employee experience by digitally enabling anytime, anywhere workplace

The omnipresence of mobility and social channels has led to an expectation of an anytime, anywhere workplace. Customers, partners, and employees expect to transact and engage at the time and place of their convenience, through the channel of their preference.

In hindsight, this expectation has slowly been building up for the last decade, but the ongoing pandemic has thrust organizations into a remote/hybrid work environment. While this feel enforced at this time, employees and organizations alike have started voicing their preference to continue on this model even after the pandemic, further reinforcing the need for a more holistically designed process for anytime, anywhere execution. Omnichannel engagement through integrated processes and applications with mobile and social channels can enable this work paradigm. It becomes imperative for organizations to provide access to content to employees remotely, but with adequate security and within regulatory and statutory compliance. A digital platform unifying content and process is key.

3. Enhance collaboration and teamwork

A happy and positive work environment is one of the key priorities for organizations. The ability to collaborate and engage effectively with coworkers, customers, and partners is a key ingredient to an efficient and positive workplace. Digital technologies can go a long way in enabling collaboration by systematically integrating automated workflows, content services, mobile technologies, and social channels. Consequently, not only is the collaboration and the engagement better, but outcomes are also achieved more efficiently, further boosting morale and job satisfaction.

4. Empower frontline and knowledge workers by enabling better decision making

Despite automation and collaboration, many critical roles in banks and credit unions seem underproductive or inefficient due to the prevalent challenges surrounding access to information and overall contextual support in knowledge work. Underwriting, risk profiling, spreading, credit assessment, and customer support are some of the key decision-making roles that can benefit significantly from the implementation of digital technologies.

Content services can enable real-time authenticated access to documents and media, automated rules and machine learning can support policy-driven decision making, and predictive guidance coupled with cognitive intelligence can help knowledge workers make smarter decisions faster. Empowered employees are better performers and more vocal ambassadors of their organization.

A platform to drive the “Great Reform”

A well-defined digital strategy, through a judicious integration of digital technologies, can help address employee motivation and job satisfaction while offering all the advantages of a remote/hybrid workplace. However, it is not straightforward because implementing these technologies in isolation can lead to another set of challenges.

That’s why a platform-based approach is preferred. A robust digital transformation platform that comes integrated with all the enabling technologies, such as process automation, content services, communication management, and cognitive intelligence, goes a long way in implementing a sustainable digital strategy.

That is how a bank, or a credit union, can tackle the “Great Resignation” not only in terms of surviving through it but also thriving on the back of a “Great Reform” with digital.