While the world’s media kept the public enthralled with stories of the banking crisis, behind the scenes the globe’s largest financial institutions were frantically undergoing perhaps the largest scale review of their operations to date.
More than a year on, and strategies for change figured out, many institutions are now starting to deliver the tactical elements and are looking for the help from the best change managers in the industry.
Change specialists have become the industry’s latest hot commodity
Change specialists have become the industry’s latest hot commodity but are in short supply. With employers avoiding training costs, and seeing the budgets for their restructures skyrocketing, the opportunity for other specialists to move into change management roles is limited, resulting in a consistent skills gap in this area.
And it’s not only interim change managers that have been in demand. Vast restructure programmes has bought about a renewed focus on the equities business creating a demand for permanent finance specialists across account management client services and on boarding roles. But with the recruitment market still buyer driven, employees are expecting to recruit candidates with premium levels of experience but some continue to pay recession level salaries.
Complex review programmes are also creating roles, as firms identify a need to reduce their trading of risky assets. This new risk-adverse culture has brought about a strong demand for risk managers and ensuring staff have strong technical product skills and financial instrumentation experience.
But with all this change underway, can the banking and financial services sector expect a backlash from existing employees? Perhaps too early to tell, but with negotiation power potentially returning to candidates in the imminent future, employees may need to ensure their engagement programmes are aligned with any major restructuring projects, making sure the best staff stay put.
