So, you’re modernizing operations at your bank to meet customer expectations and satisfy their demands. But what about your employees? Research has found that companies that invest in employee experience perform better than those that don’t: up to 4x the profit and double the revenue, according to Fintech Futures.
Without the right technology solutions in place, organizations run the risk of losing staff to competitors that can provide those individuals with better tools to do their job. This is especially true in the banking sector where fintech companies are vying for talent with bells and whistles on their agile new technology. Even incumbents are heavily investing in digital to improve their operations.
You need to provide connectivity, visibility, and support: things that are more important now than ever. Here are five ways you can empower your employees…
In the face of fierce competition for the best industry talent, firms must provide employees with the digital tools they need to succeed. Staff need to be offered up-to-date applications to manage and complete their work efficiently, and from whichever device they choose.
The latest software for administration and customer service, automation and data analysis are crucial to empowering today’s employees and to delighting customers. The efficiency and success of individuals can be severely limited by the tools they have available to them.
This has become more apparent than ever since the global pandemic. The majority of workers in the banking sector were forced to work from home; working from a laptop at the dining table became a common setup, and home working continues to be the norm for many. It’s not just hardware that’s important, but the connectivity that the organization’s infrastructure can provide. You want employees to be able to work efficiently and with little stress or disruption caused by remote working.
It’s worth noting that some workers will always be in the field and visiting customers, so need to conduct business on the go, not just from their desks. AgFirst Credit Bank needed to develop an agile approach to working as their employees were almost always on the road visiting customers rather than in the office. They launched a project to deliver robust and reusable business processes that employees could engage with from anywhere and on any device to carry out loan approval and special asset management. AgFirst now has a responsive, mobile-optimized platform that has dramatically improved compliance consistency.
Visibility and transparency are important in any business, but even more so in banking when documents, communications, and money are constantly on the move. Your employees need visibility across all systems with access (where permitted) to any necessary documents to enable them to work with maximum efficiency.
Connecting all systems through a centralized low-code automation platform means that there are no data gaps and gives complete process visibility and orchestration. This provides real-time data to employees so they can complete work more efficiently and enables them to act with certainty when executing tasks that rely on important information.
A connected view also provides more understanding of your organization’s data, which allows employees to uncover important insights as well as embed Business Intelligence tools and analytics to further operations.
“By increasing visibility and embracing analytics, banks are minimizing disruption and keeping their businesses viable even during considerable financial and societal turmoil. In short, greater insight is helping banks stay relevant in a fintech world,” says Flak Rieker, Global Head of Banking Industry Business, SAP.
Giving employees a centralized and standardized way of operating not only improves efficiency with visibility, but also supports them to do their jobs better. Automating manual tasks within business processes can enhance employee performance and gives them more time to focus on the customer, rather than on administrative tasks that are essential, but add little value to the big picture.
“Automation technology, can enhance employee performance by offering real-time process guidance, helping the employee spot opportunities to offer an additional product or service—or perhaps prevent the employee from taking an action that may result in a compliance breach,” says Bain.
This independence provided by automation, combined with additional capabilities such as real-time information through a single platform, promotes opportunities to solve operational challenges and empowers employees to turn their attention to customers.
Transforming processes at the heart of your operations can seem daunting, and automation often meets resistance when staff don’t understand its purpose – to free up their time to focus on the customer.
There is a misnomer that automation technologies can make workers redundant by doing their jobs for them. This is far from the truth. But organizations need to cultivate a culture of education and understanding so that process automation can be embraced.
Change management can make or break introducing a new technology or way of working to your organization. There will always be a learning curve as employees take up a new way of working, and they will have questions about their new platform, so make training a priority and embrace the flexibility that this new platform will bring, such as agility and mobile working. And of course, emphasize the benefits!
IT leaders from the CIO down are tasked with supporting the business with the technologies that it needs. This increasingly means enabling business functions with the digital tools to manage their own destiny. One example is the rapidly growing popularity of low-code automation platforms suitable for citizen developers to use with limited IT support.
A low-code approach enables employees in the business with little to no coding knowledge to create or make changes to simple business processes themselves by creating process workflows. This means they don’t have to approach IT to have a system recoded, which gives IT time to focus on more complex processes. And it gives business users independence to create and improve their own business processes, creating further opportunities for automation and efficiency.
Automating tasks through a single, low-code application platform helped a Bizagi banking customer save more than 500,000 hours per year for its front-end workers, as they could view all customers’ information in real-time through a single platform. Not only does this help employees to carry out their daily jobs to a higher standard, but it also delights customers with improved service and experience.
If would like to learn more about how automation can accelerate your bank’s transformation efforts, download our free ebook, The Essential Guide to Modernizing Banking Operations.
In addition to insight on how to offer innovative employee experiences, you will also learn how to:
- Create frictionless customer experiences
- Respond to regulatory pressures
- Bridge gaps in your system with automation
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