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In the banking and finance sector, talent management plays a crucial role in maintaining competitiveness and innovation, and responding to shifts in the market. Here are 10 key points to ensure the long-term success of your talent in this field, from assessing skills (such as critical thinking, a crucial soft skill in banking) to well-being at work.
With their experience in the Tech & IT sector, working at a digital services company (ESN) and then as a partner at a digital sector-focused headhunting firm for Estelle Calestroupat, currently a Work Psychologist and Key Account Consultant at Pearson TalentLens, and 5 years at Cisco, a globally renowned IT company, for Anna Ballerand, current HR Manager of Pearson France, they have agreed to share strategies to better attract, recruit, and retain employees in this sector.
To better recruit talents in this sector, support their skill development, and career progression, HR professionals can use psychometric tests: personality and values inventories, intellectual aptitude tests, critical thinking assessment tests, as well as motivation and professional interest questionnaires.
They allow them to:
Due to increased demand for care, healthcare staff face high workloads, irregular schedules, and stressful situations. This often leads to professional burnout and high staff turnover rates, compromising care quality and job satisfaction. What strategies can be implemented to preserve the mental health of medical personnel?
According to the WHO, professional burnout is "a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed." Several factors contribute to this:
Staff shortage: In the medical sector, all positions must be filled to care for patients. Staff shortages result in overtime and increased workloads to manage a higher number of patients, leading to physical and mental fatigue, decreased productivity, medical errors, absenteeism, and departures.
Innovation: Besides constant advancements in medications and treatments, the medical sector increasingly relies on technology to modernize equipment and surgical techniques. Staff must adapt to these innovations while maintaining transparent and connected patient relations, adding to stress.
Exposure to risks: Staff are continually exposed to health risks (infections) from contact with sick patients in overcrowded facilities where protective equipment, safe facilities, and prevention measures may be insufficient. Psychological risks also exist due to the emotional burden of the job. Patient deaths or verbal abuse can be stressful and traumatic, influencing staff well-being.
According to surveys, nursing has the highest professional burnout rate at 70%. Nurses often feel they can do more than permitted or are unable to provide adequate care due to high patient loads. Overwork triples the risk of professional burnout, leading to intentions to leave the job. About one-third of nurses (32%) consider leaving the profession, while over half of physicians and other healthcare professionals feel exhausted, stressed, and ready to quit due to factors such as staffing shortages, low salaries, mental and emotional strain, job insecurity, inflexibility, and lack of support.
Staff burnout results from both staffing deficiencies and high turnover rates, causing a cumulative effect. Burnout affects patients as medical staff struggle with emotional, mental, and physical fatigue, impairing patient relations and care.
By actively listening to staff, considering their needs, and supporting their learning and career development, HR managers can prevent burnout:
"Every member of the healthcare team is crucial to patient outcomes and experiences," says Dr. Lisa Rotenstein, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. "It's vital to remember this as we strive to optimize both patient outcomes and our staff's experiences." Healthcare staff burnout is a significant issue facing healthcare facilities and HR professionals in this sector. It is imperative to address it to preserve employee mental health and ensure exemplary care quality.
Estelle Calestroupat, Work Psychologist and Key Account Consultant at Pearson TalentLens, and Anna Ballerand, HR Manager of Pearson France, share a common background: experience in the Tech & IT sector. They have agreed to share their experiences regarding the specific HR challenges in this field.
Estelle Calestroupat and Anna Ballerand agree that the Tech & IT sector is highly dynamic and constantly evolving. While this trend isn't new, it has accelerated significantly in recent years. "Technological innovations are constant. New products, services, and solutions emerge continuously to meet the changing needs of users," notes Anna Ballerand. The attraction to this sector is undeniable. "It no longer appears reserved only for a few experts. The new generations are comfortable with technology and digital tools; it's part of their daily lives, which draws them to work in this field," adds Estelle Calestroupat.
The skills sought in the Tech-IT sector are varied and necessarily depend on the context, the company, and the position. "All these elements require, as with every recruitment process, an analysis of expectations," recalls Estelle Calestroupat before specifying that "generally, there will be expectations in terms of technical skills/knowledge (or at least an inclination towards new technologies), adaptability/learning ability, analytical skills, and transversal skills (such as organization, rigor, teamwork, communication, etc.)."
To assess these skills, HR professionals can rely on personality and value inventories, tests of intellectual aptitudes, and tests of critical thinking. "Psychometric tests allow either the evaluation of a candidate's strengths and areas for development in relation to the expectations of a position, as in the case of an assessment during recruitment, or to accompany an employee in becoming aware of their comfort zones and areas for improvement (self-awareness, understanding of their functioning) in a developmental logic," says Estelle Calestroupat.
Their advantages are numerous, adds Anna Ballerand:
Estelle Calestroupat has worked in the IT and new technologies sector for over 10 years. Initially, she worked internally at a digital services company in project management (defining competency frameworks and building evaluation processes), training for recruiters and recruiter managers, and operational recruitment (recruitment and internal mobility) for manager, sales, and bid manager profiles. She then collaborated with a headhunting firm specializing in the digital sector, again focusing on sales, bid managers, project managers, and managers.
Anna Ballerand spent 5 years at Cisco, a globally renowned IT company, responsible for recruitment and employee and manager training support, implementing social benefits, conducting professional interviews, and promoting campaigns such as Great Place To Work®.
The retail sector has long been associated with high turnover rates. It hovers around 60%, meaning that more than half of the staff is likely to change within a year, according to McKinsey. It is imperative for companies operating in this sector to refine their HR practices to optimize employee retention because high turnover rates have significant impacts on their commercial performance. They can rely on psychometric assessments for this purpose.
The turnover rate (or employee turnover) is a key performance indicator (KPI) that quantifies the rate of voluntary or involuntary departure and replacement of personnel within an organization during a specific period. It assesses the stability of its workforce and its overall health.
A high turnover rate often reflects employee dissatisfaction, inefficient recruitment or onboarding processes, and any potential organizational issues within the company.
Conversely, a low turnover rate reveals employee satisfaction, effective talent retention strategies, and a pleasant work environment.
Understanding and analyzing the turnover rate is a strategic imperative. It directly impacts the company's finances and indirectly affects its operational effectiveness.
Psychometric tests explore personality, assess abilities, identify motivations, interests, and values of an individual.
In recruitment, psychometric tests allow retail companies to:
In development, psychometric tests allow them to:
To reduce their turnover rates, retail companies must rethink their talent acquisition and retention strategies. The use of psychometric tests allows them to recruit individuals whose profile aligns with the company's culture and the position to be filled, ensure they have the necessary skills, and evaluate those that are useful to develop to encourage them to stay and evolve within the company for as long as possible.
Possessing critical thinking skills is sought after and highly valued in the banking sector to adapt to changes, make decisions, address issues, and propose solutions.
In the banking sector, customer expectations are evolving rapidly: They demand user-friendly and intuitive interfaces for their online and mobile banking transactions, as well as a smooth and transparent experience across all communication channels with their bank. They are very open to adopting new technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, and chatbots to facilitate their operations. They also expect efficient and responsive financial services tailored to their needs and preferences. Finally, they attach great importance to the protection and confidentiality of their personal data against fraud and cyber-attacks.
To meet these requirements, employees in the banking sector must master technical skills related to online banking operations, data management, cybersecurity, and the use of new technologies. Additionally, they increasingly require behavioral skills in:
The banking sector employs many people but experiences high attrition and turnover rates. To remain competitive in a market marked by uncertain economic and geopolitical conditions, increased technological disruption, fierce competition between traditional banks and new, more innovative and agile players, banks must compete to attract and retain top talent. They must evolve their talent acquisition processes to improve efficiency and speed, and focus on assessing these skills, particularly critical thinking.
According to a global study by PwC, while digital skills are considered important by 70%, 77% recognize that critical thinking skills, such as emotional intelligence and judgment, are crucial in banking professions. Isabelle Jenkins, Head of Financial Services at PwC UK, adds: "Being adaptable, collaborative, and demonstrating critical thinking skills is important. If we truly want to leverage technological advances, we will need the right people with the appropriate skills so that we can truly solve problems, drive productivity, and create growth. Investment in technology is essential to achieve all these goals. But it must be guided by human ingenuity, expertise, and understanding."
Carole Fortier Bidan, Senior Product Developer at Pearson TalentLens, and Christelle Cadoret, Psychologist and HR consultant, authors of the book "Embracing Change and Making Informed Decisions - Critical Thinking & Adaptability" (Pearson, Human Skills collection), define critical thinking as a mindset aimed at logically analyzing situations for a specific purpose, such as problem-solving, explaining a viewpoint, interpreting, or justifying a decision. It involves searching for facts, evidence, understanding and analyzing different perspectives, and personal qualities such as listening, humility, curiosity, open-mindedness, and taking a step back. It requires self-awareness regarding one's own biases, beliefs, stereotypes, and cognitive biases to limit their impact on decision-making and positioning. It is practiced through constructive effort that involves and promotes a collaborative spirit in the service of collective intelligence.
It is qualified as a power skill because reasoning and decision-making are the least automated tasks in the workplace.
Laure Bogeat, current Director of HR Development and former Head of Recruitment, Career, and Employment Services at BPCE Infogérance et Technologies, the IT GIE of the BPCE group, the second largest French banking group, testifies to the importance of critical thinking in the banking sector: "Our environment is complex, systemic, and evolving rapidly. In the context of recruitment challenges, it is a tight market at the heart of new technologies and the digital transformation of the group, we wanted in our recruitment processes to ensure a level of analysis, an understanding of our challenges, and intellectual flexibility allowing our new recruits to thrive in our structure. The Watson-Glaser™ III Critical Thinking Assessment naturally emerged. It informs us of the intellectual approach of the candidate to solve a problem and make a decision, but also on the understanding of their environment, their interpretation of factual data, and synthesis capacity, all relevant elements in our selection criteria."
Critical thinking skills are crucial within the banking sector and the ability of HR professionals to assess this ability can make a difference to the long-term talent acquisition process. Helping to identify and develop new candidates into roles and spot potential high-performers for training and leadership roles in the future.
Overall, exercising critical thinking ability has a crucial role in the banking sector for making informed decisions, identifying and evaluating potential risks in financial operations, proposing creative and innovative solutions to clients, in compliance with established regulations and standards, and with a focus on confidentiality and data protection. It is an essential skill to assess and develop in candidates and existing employees.
Artificial intelligence, automation, cloud computing, blockchain... companies in the Tech and IT sector are constantly seeking new ways to improve and push the boundaries of existing technology. To remain competitive, they must be agile and source talent with specific skills. What are these skills? How can organizations attract, recruit, and retain talents in this rapidly changing sector?
The sought-after skills include:
Recruiters in this sector now attach as much importance to soft skills (behavioral skills) as they do to hard skills (technical skills). According to a Deloitte study, leadership skills (54%), problem-solving and decision-making (47%), interpersonal skills (44%), creative and innovative thinking (41%) precede data analysis (40%) as the top essential skills in Tech-IT professions for the years to come.
There are various methods:
According to Sacha Kalusevic, Director of Michael Page Technology, "There should be more continuous training to support employee progression. To attract more IT candidates, companies could highlight the skills that their future recruits will develop in the projects they will undertake and offer them a training program to update or develop certain technical skills."
Tech profiles, accustomed to self-learning, want to enhance their skills to stay aligned with market needs and those of their employers. It is essential to support this and support their career development.
It is essential to offer flexible/hybrid work environments (telecommuting, flexible hours, flex office, four-day week) as well as meaningful work with missions, a vision, and clear objectives.
The profile of talent in the Tech and IT sector has evolved. Individuals are now recruited not only for their technical abilities but also for their behavioral skills; they are even considered a priority. Such skills should therefore be evaluated during the recruitment process and, also developed among existing employees.
Like the World Wide Web at one time, AI (Artificial Intelligence) is developing more and more in the business world. All areas of business are impacted, and its powerful technology is revolutionizing the world of work. For some of us, AI is seen as a threat, while others, on the contrary, view it as a great opportunity to transform our work "for the better".
One thing is certain: AI is changing us. To take full advantage of AI in your business sector, there's one golden rule: anticipate the skills you'll need to evolve your job and use your role as a human being as added value. 86% of respondents to a BCG X study believe they will need training to upgrade their skills [1]. What impact does AI have on professional skills? How can we best prepare for the growing integration of AI into the world of work? Here's how.t
The world of work is undergoing a paradigm shift with the increasing arrival of AI in many industries. To take advantage of this, it's important to understand its scope and prepare optimally for its integration within the company. The human skills required for a job are not necessarily the same as before. Everyone can make the most of this changing environment by developing new key skills, useful for adapting to the evolution of their profession. The rapid progress of AI also requires a culture of continuous adaptation. In this sense, it's important for human resources (HR) managers to support employees in developing their skills throughout their professional careers and encourage continuous learning. In this way, employees will feel better supported in this ongoing transformation and the impact it has on their jobs.
[1] Study by BCG X, BCG's tech entity, on the impact of AI on jobs among employees in 18 countries across all industries and statuses https://www.bcg.com/publications/2023/what-people-are-saying-about-ai-at-work
Employability is a central issue in the workforce market. With soft skills a central component of this concept, the question of how to reliably measure these skills arises. Psychometric tools provide an appropriate method of reporting a skills profile, Guillaume Demery, Doctor of Psychology and Designer and Developer of Psychometric Tools at Pearson TalentLens, sheds some light on the subject.
A concept studied for several decades; employability has been the subject of several definitions. Thus, for Hillage and Pollard (1998): “In simple terms, employability consists of being able to obtain and keep a job. More generally, employability is the ability to move independently in the labour market to realise one's potential through sustainable employment”. This very general definition makes it possible to understand the importance of the concept as a possibility of adapting to a constantly changing labour market.
However, it is interesting to know and understand the existing levers that allow access to this employability. A definition from Hinchcliffe (2001) states: “Employability is defined as having a set of skills, knowledge, and personal attributes that make a person more likely to be secure and successful in their chosen occupation”. Thanks to this definition, we understand that the individual is at the heart of employability, whether through his knowledge, the skills he has acquired and certain attributes that are specific to him, such as motivation or interests (Fenouillet, 2016).
It is possible to model the factors influencing employability. Thus, Pool and Sewell (2007) consider that experience, levels of knowledge, soft skills, emotional intelligence as well as development and training throughout the career are key factors, working together to improve employability.
As a result, it is an important issue both for new graduates entering the job market and for professionals in transition and looking either for retraining or career development within their company. (Harvey, 2001; Guilbert et al., 2016). While experience and training within a company are factors that favour professionals over young graduates, soft skills are essential and useful skills upon graduation (Andrew & Higson, 2008).
Behavioural skills can be generalised to most trades offered on the labour market and are essential for good employability. Beyond hard skills, namely business skills, we understand that employability is essentially based on the ability of individuals to be able to integrate and adapt to a rapidly changing labour market.
A non-exhaustive list of expected soft skills:
Motivation referred to as “the reasons underlying behavior” (Guay et al., 2010, p. 712), and the “the attribute that moves us to do or not to do something” (Gredler, Broussard and Garrison., 2004, p. 106) is a non-negligible factor of employability, allowing, beyond the capacities of the individual, to understand the probability that he adheres and puts in place the appropriate behaviours to remain effective in his profession. It is therefore advisable to know the motivations and interests (Schiefele, 1991).
Knowing the importance of employability in the labour market, it is necessary that reliable measures are put in place to help individuals, whether they are new graduates seeking to enter the labour market, professionals looking for retraining or development within their organisations, or companies looking for the best employability profiles in order to have long-term prospects with new recruits.
The evaluation of soft skills requires statistically valid and reliable tools, capable of measuring concepts that are sometimes difficult to observe (for example, the individual's ability to work under pressure). Psychometrics, which is concerned with the theoretical and practical aspects of psychological measurement (Chadha, 2009), is at this stage the most advanced discipline in the creation of such measures.
Several types of tools exist to measure these skills. For example, assessment tests are specifically constructed to measure work styles, those aspects of personality most important to success. Work styles can be thought of as an individual's typical patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaviour that can positively influence success in the world of work, and therefore employability, according to database studies. These working styles are organised around four major themes:
Aptitude tests also make it possible to understand the adaptability of the individual in the world of work, to measure essential skills such as the ability to solve problems, verbal comprehension, the ability to correctly interpret data in order to place entrepreneurial strategies, or the ability to evaluate arguments and issue unbiased conclusions.
These psychometric tests based either on the classical test theory or, thanks to the digital evolution of these solutions, on the item response theory based on a probabilistic reasoning of the calculation of the level of aptitude (Edelen & Reeve, 2007), make it possible to have statistically valid and reliable measurements of these soft skills, or even of the motivations and interests of the individual.
Thanks to these methods, it is possible to establish an employability profile of the individual, so that they understand their levers on the labour market while recognising the skills that they can improve, guaranteeing the establishment of a training circuit adapted to the needs of the user.
In 2020, the World Economic Forum estimated that one out of every two workers in the world would need re-skilling (training to acquire new skills needed to change jobs) over the following five years. According to projections from the Future of Jobs Report, companies will need to incorporate new job roles into their organizations in the same time frame: e.g., data analysts and data scientists, AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning specialists, business development professionals, etc. In all, ten mostly new professions will represent a workplace demand estimated at nearly one hundred million people.
These staggering figures illustrate the scale of the challenge that is now facing all business sectors and companies of all sizes. In order to keep a competitive advantage, and to survive the emergence of new players, they have no choice but to adapt and transform in order to remain agile.
The pandemic has added to this, accelerating the transformations already taking place, particularly in the digital space. More than ever, the question arises as to the need to adapt technical (hard) skills and improve behavioral (soft) skills to maintain employees’ employability.
Such an approach is even more important given that employees are also voicing that expectation. According to the Great Insights 2022 study conducted by the Great Place To Work Institute, employability is one of their primary concerns.
Nearly one in two employees state that they will need to upgrade their skills and/or pivot job role in the next five years, but almost a third of them do not feel that they have benefited from specific career development support over the past year.
The study also reveals that training and development programs are becoming one of the defining criteria when choosing to work for a potential employer. With this in mind, here are five ways you can create a culture of employability at your organization:
The best talent pipelines are those that are nurtured. Building a talent pool takes time and requires a well-orchestrated strategy which focuses on the long-term aims of the business, as well as the immediate needs. Cultivating conversations with potential candidates for roles that may not yet be fully formed enables hiring managers to be future focused. This coupled with insight from team managers across the business as to what values, skills and personality will be the best fit for the team, can help hiring managers to make informed decisions to attract top talent.
Avoid restricting your candidate pool by only focusing on qualifications. Adopting a skills-based approach to hiring opens your talent pool, giving you a wider reach and the ability to attract candidates outside of your usual recruitment network. In the US, “LinkedIn has seen a 21% increase in job postings advertising skills and responsibilities instead of qualifications”. This strategic approach can result in a more varied and multi-skilled workforce, and even help to improve retention rates.
Psychometric assessments supply detailed, data-driven insight into the values, personality, skills and potential of candidates. There are two forms of psychometric tools - personality and aptitude tests - which together can provide a comprehensive overview of a candidate. With tools such as Role Assessment, a custom employment assessment can be created to meet your roles’ requirements, and its results generate a fit-to-role score that aids in your decision making.
From quiet quitting to quiet thriving, today’s employees are making their feelings on employability known. Gen Z’s priorities are focused on a work-life balance where active steps in creating a culture of wellbeing and inclusion are sought after. Today’s candidates want organizations who echo their values and aren’t afraid to speak up or move on if they don’t align. Take time to review your company brand and values. How do you present yourself? Are you actively living your values? How are you working to upskill and retrain your teams?
The future-of-work challenge cannot be met solely by improvisation. The whole organization, from employees through to top management, needs to subscribe to a culture of “employability” so that each person takes ownership. Executive management sets the course and shares a strategic direction and its implications for the development of job roles. Line management then implements that strategy by identifying development areas for its teams and by working with employees to determine their own employability.
Employability must be embraced across business units to future-proof organizations. Priorities have evolved, technology has marched forward, and organizations can no longer afford to wait and see what skills gaps will develop in the future. Taking steps to reflect on your organization’s employability approach can help future-proof your talent pipeline and address the growing skills gap. For more information on employability, download our whitepaper - “How to Put Employability at the Heart of Corporate Strategy.”
