Some of the challenges associated with managing a technology team at a financial institution are the same challenges that exist everywhere, from dealing with underperformers to boosting morale.
Others are prominent in technology or specific to the field.
Technology executives and leaders at banks and credit unions know their teams are hungry for change and want to know their work has an impact. But they also need to justify the business case for new technologies, rather than being seduced by the allure of hot emerging technologies such as:
“For banks, technology is core to their business, so it's important for banks to address these issues,” said Bridie Fanning, head of talent and organization for North American banking at Accenture. .
Some challenges start at the top.
“Information technology is typically viewed as a cost of doing business,” said Carrie Ransom, managing director of BankTech Ventures, a venture capital fund whose limited partners include banks. “People with a business education are taught to minimize costs rather than invest in new forms of revenue and things that can stimulate growth.”
Passion project or wise decision?
Several executives emphasized that technology teams are especially invested in seeing the impact of their work, and morale can suffer if a project doesn't go well. It's important to make sure there's a viable business case, even if it means an exciting venture is canceled before it gets off the ground.
At the same time, employees want to focus on projects they are passionate about.
In the past 10 years,
“It also affects employee morale and productivity,” Muthukrishnan said. “You're not just maintaining someone else's code; you're building something new and solving a problem for your customers.”
Oscar Gonzalez, head of embedded banking for financial solutions at Citizens Financial Group in Providence, R.I., is not part of the $222 billion technology company, but he regularly works with these teams. We are affiliated. He observed a similar phenomenon and a strong desire to feel ownership of products among technology employees.
“We found that people are more productive when they do what they're good at and what they like,” he says. “People in information technology especially love change.”
To keep Ally's technology workforce vibrant, there is pressure from upper management to relocate and promote talent. Muthukrishnan said internal liquidity for this part of the company has now risen to 28% from 7% in 2020, when he joined. Personnel in machine learning modeling, risk management, compliance, cybersecurity, application development, etc. have all swapped roles recently, including Head of Technology Risk and Head of Technology Operations. Every quarter, Mr. Muthukrishnan and other leaders discuss potential new opportunities for many of the $186 billion bank's 2,300 technology employees.
“People across the organization see it and ideas are generated,” Mthukrishan said.
Another element of your retention strategy is giving back. Specifically in the technology field, Arai employees help refurbish laptops and equipment donated to nonprofits in Detroit and Charlotte, North Carolina, and work with nonprofits and local governments, including the city of Detroit, to improve cybersecurity, coding, and more. , and teach other skills. They also contributed the bank's personally identifiable information masking code to his LangChain open source community, a platform for developers to build artificial intelligence-driven apps.
Mthukrishan points out that the population decline has decreased from double digits a few years ago to single digits now.
Muthukrishnan said, “We've been operating on the belief that we want every company in the world to follow our Ally talent, and no one wants to leave.''
TD Bank Group, based in Toronto, Canada, has $1.4 trillion in assets in U.S. dollars and has a unique mechanism for turning employee ideas into real projects called TD Invent. Masu.
“There needs to be a balance between driving healthy business outcomes and doing meaningful and interesting work,” said Imran Khan, head of TD Invent. “If you're too disconnected from the business, your work is less likely to see the light of day. If you're not thinking far enough into the future, your work is less likely to have as much impact.” there is.”
For example, his team decided that the Metaverse didn't yet have practical meaning for customers.But they saw potential there.
Another difficult balance to balance in technology is between burnout and boredom.
“Digital teams that work on member-facing activities and have to constantly respond to consumer demand are being left behind,” he said.
However, experts in areas such as traditional banking platforms used for cold storage and product processing may view these systems as mature to the point where major changes are unlikely.
“You don't want that person walking out the door,” Ingram said. “It's really hard to try to keep them interested so they don't get bored.”
Fanning sees a similar phenomenon occurring in banks. Those running legacy mainframe systems may become bored if they focus on one thing, but as they approach retirement age, they may lose interest in expanding their skill set. It often happens. New hires in cybersecurity or cloud roles may not be interested in learning legacy systems.
“One of the big challenges is how do you maintain talent on the mainframe and how do you train new talent for mainframe systems,” she said.
Competition for cybersecurity and cloud expertise is especially intense, and banks are at a disadvantage if they don't reward individuals accordingly.
“When a technician earns cloud certification from Google, AWS, or Microsoft, their value in the marketplace instantly increases by 20%,” she said. “I don’t think a lot of banks realize that.”
What happened to the competition for technology talent?
Despite the headline,
“The high number of job openings means that if you don't like the employee experience, you can easily move to another company,” Muthukrishnan said. “It's even easier when you're remote. You're sitting at the same desk and chair, except you're working for a different company.”
Fifth Third Bancorp in Cincinnati is addressing this issue with short- and long-term strategies.
The short-term question to solve is: How can we become an employer of choice in our industry? said Brian Minnick, chief technology and information security officer at the $215 billion bank. Fifth Third's technology team frequently proposes topics and panels at industry conferences. In the longer term, the bank will partner with local high schools that have cyber clubs, hold training sessions, and host security challenges, such as a computer-based “capture the flag” game in which students hack, to improve the We are developing human resources in the city. Use each other's computers to steal flags. Within the bank, he has a one-year leadership development program aimed at high-potential employees in the information security field.
“The challenges we have faced are
Discover Financial Services, located in Riverwoods, Illinois, is also committed to developing talent both inside and outside the bank. Discover Technology Academy is “an internal community built by engineers for engineers,” said Angel Diaz, vice president of technology capabilities and innovation at his $152 billion Discover company. In 2023, he launched Discover Technology Experience for the public as his website for the company's developers to share their expertise.
These issues particularly affect the following cases:
“Realistically, there are only a limited number of administrators who are familiar with the specific core banking systems and application stacks used by banks,” Ingram says. “It's hard to find people who can speak both technical and general terminology and also understand the business.”
At the same time, credit unions want people to live and work in the communities they serve. But “many of these people know their worth,” he continued. “They don't want to move to Bellingham.”
In some cases, Ransom said, community banks employ separate chief information officers and chief technology officers. In his view, it's best to have a CIO who is responsible for infrastructure such as existing servers and networks, ATMs and other physical systems, and the cloud, and a CTO who focuses on software development and integration, data strategy, and overall software and data architecture. is reasonable. .
Finally, it can be difficult to manage certain personalities or find a certain balance.
Christian Koontz, director of banking reform at Zions Bank in Salt Lake City, feels this way.
Both types “can undermine the culture and performance of the entire team,” she says.
She can find part-time workers based on resumes. For those with highly specialized skills, one-on-one conversations can be effective, she says, by reframing their value as someone who can mentor the next generation of talent. To rewire that mindset more broadly, her $87 billion-asset Zions awards quarterly awards for enterprise technology and operations. Her one of the categories of this award is given to those who empower others.
“It's going to take time, but it's part of a culture change,” Koontz said.
