Many private banks are finding that the multiple training priorities they face in order to keep up with the pace of industry development in Asia are increasingly difficult to juggle.
Date: Oct 7, 2011
Tags: Training, Talent development, Interns
Many private banks are finding that the multiple training priorities they face in order to keep up with the pace of industry development in Asia are increasingly difficult to juggle.
Key challenges they face from a training perspective include: meeting required standards in product knowledge; ensuring product suitability for different types of clients; understanding clients’ needs (and then providing the necessary products and services for them); and addressing the compliance issues in today’s fast-changing regulatory environment.
Yet in addition to trying to tackle so many pressing tasks, the aggressive growth ambitions of most banks are adding to their burden.
This is leading to a situation where a number of firms are struggling to prioritise how to train and develop talent in a way which addresses the combination of client and compliance requirements – and at the same time can help meet revenue targets in an appropriate way.
These were some of the issues raised at a recent closed-door gathering in Singapore of key training, HR and other senior practitioners in Asian wealth management.
Core to the business
The priority for the majority of wealth management organisations continues to be finding and then retaining talent – not just on the sales side of the business but within middle and back-office functions, too.
But firms have found it difficult to revamp and strengthen internal academies and HR capabilities in a way that ensures training is core to the business and its future growth – and no longer just a knee-jerk response to changing market conditions, client appetite or new rules and regulations.
The current uncertainty in financial markets coupled with high cost-income ratios doesn’t help.
Indeed, market specialists and industry practitioners within HR, training and associated roles fear that learning and development functions might be one of the first areas to suffer cut-backs during the imminent downturn. Clearly, this will compound the challenge of meeting training needs and goals.
Nonetheless, to create the right training culture, practitioners agree that institutions need to focus first on aligning learning and development with the organisation’s overall strategic goals.
This would help them determine the type of individuals, and therefore training, that they want and need.
This must also focus not just on developing technical capability and product knowledge, but also on sales, management, leadership and other skills which support and develop both client and staff relationships.
Having a more structured internship programme is another effective training tool to add to the mix, say practitioners – at least for the bigger banks with capacity to groom young talent.
In line with this, the Monetary Authority of Singapore has already been calling on banks to take on more young people in the kind of apprentice-style approach that has successfully existed for many years in Switzerland from the age of 16 upwards.
However, given that this isn’t as culturally widespread in Singapore, what is more likely to be successful is firms taking on interns to enable the banks to trial students who are currently studying relevant courses, to see whether they will work out – without any commitment from either party.
Yet it shouldn’t entirely be the responsibility of the regulator to grow the industry’s pool of talent.
Instead, it should be down to the leadership within individual organisations to ensure the training and development strategy is in place, and clearly articulated, to attract, develop and retain talent – as well as to manage any under-performance.
This requires management attention as well as giving people a platform within which they can develop. And in such a competitive environment, there is no time to waste.
Even though this represents an additional cost – without new talent, how else is the industry in Singapore going to further develop and flourish?
