Human Capital: How highly do you value your people?

With technology invading every aspect of daily work, from card processing to online banking to social media strategies, it has become all too easy to overlook your financial institution’s greatest asset — its people. Your employees’ interaction with account holders sets the tone of the organization and builds its culture. Value them appropriately, and your bank or credit union will likely flourish. Undervalue them, and you’ll probably experience a recurring cycle of low morale, high turnover, and account holder dissatisfaction.

Start Off on the Right Foot

The first step in valuing employees is to hire people you actually value in the first place — finding not just the candidate with the strongest skill set, but the best fit for your bank or credit union. Having a vigorous recruiting process will help ensure a compatible match. From an initial deep dive to discover the intricacies of your organization’s culture to profile testing and evaluating candidates on real-world scenario performances will narrow the field down to the people who will best further your institution’s goals.

Having a smooth onboarding process helps people adjust to the social and performance aspects of their new jobs quickly and also makes them feel valued. This, in turn, encourages them to stay with an organization longer. But don’t make the common mistake of thinking that onboarding begins on an employee’s first day — a successful onboarding program actually begins during the recruiting and hiring process.

 

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