When you think of staffing your financial institution, you may think of standard positions – tellers, financial advisors and a management hierarchy. However, now more than ever, financial institutions require creative, tech-familiar and customer-experience-oriented staff to drive their organization forward, reimagine the customer experience and help gain a competitive edge. Consider the following attributes when hiring for your financial institution.
Tech Savvy
This one is a no brainer. At a high level, you need your staff to understand technology and the power of its implementation in financial services. In particular, individuals who are interested in learning about how new technologies are transforming financial services will be those most inclined to implement and maximize new technology to improve customer experience.
Customer Centricity
While technological familiarity is important, its real value comes from the ability to apply it to the customer experience. Professionals who can understand customer needs, marry it to technology and then find ways to personalize that technology and make it useful will come out on top.
Outward Looking
Financial services as an industry is in flux now more than ever, with a huge amount of disruption and restructuring of how customers typically think about a bank or credit union. Inherently curious individuals on your staff will look to industry trends and actions by other financial institutions in order to learn lessons about new technology, bring those lessons to your organization, and help implement new systems and technology that will give your financial institution a competitive edge.
Willing to Reimagine
From individual tellers to presidents and CEOs, staff and leadership in financial institutions need to be willing to challenge their assumptions about how their bank or credit union looks, feels and operates. Organizations like Capital One are rethinking the entire branch experience, replacing a traditional branch location with something that more closely resembles a coffee shop. While the future of the branch experience is still being conceived, individuals in the industry need to be open to change and open to the possibilities of newly conceived technologies, structures and experiences.
Adaptable
With change as the only constant in financial services, newly hired staff members should embrace this change as an opportunity to learn and grow. Look for individuals who are curious about new technology interested in changing the way your customers interact with you and who see change as an opportunity to improve, rather than a hurdle that should be resisted and avoided.
Entrepreneurial
Finally, look for individuals who have an entrepreneurial mindset. Ultimately, your financial institution can improve by marrying new technology with a heightened customer experience in order to generate more customer loyalty and increase revenue opportunities for your organization. Individuals who can see the interaction between your bottom line, the customer experience and improved digital experiences will prove to be your most valuable employees.
