The Banking & Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector contributes over 6% to India’s Gross  Domestic Product (GDP) and plays a substantial role in promoting the growth of the economy.  However, the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way organizations in the BFSI space are providing  services to customers. As we have seen, due to COVID-19, the digital adoption across organizations  has accelerated. The IT department of various organizations have had to work overtime to set up the  IT infrastructure and get employees connected to work remotely. At the same time, employees were  required to adjust their daily routine to one that had to balance home and work on the fly. The ability  to work remotely has opened new possibilities, both for employers and employees. This has ushered  in the wave of digital culture. 

With this wave of change, every organization in the BFSI space will now focus to adopt an innovative  Business Model and Customer experience journey based on digital platform adoption. The success of  the new business model is dependent on employees who will lead and execute the digital  transformation journey. Every organization in the BFSI space is now adopting financial technology  faster than ever, in this fintech world there is an emphasis to bridge the skill requirement gap and  build people capability ecosystems.  

Hiring Trends 

Since the commencement of unlocking of the economic activity, the hiring practice that had stalled  during the pandemic has picked up pace. When we look at the hiring trend year-on-year, the overall  hiring activity continues to be still down. In the digital culture era, the hiring trend will be focused on  competence to cater to the growing need of convergence between domains of the BFSI and IT. Banks  have implemented Centralized Banking with connectivity between branches, Insurance companies  have implemented digital platforms for sourcing policies, underwriting and issuance. Mutual Funds  have online platforms for buying and redemption and customers can check their portfolio  performance 24X7. Broking companies have implemented mobile applications for all trading and  investing activities and Non-banking financial services companies and housing finance companies have  implemented digital lending platforms catering to the end-to-end process from sourcing to  disbursement of loans. 

Organizations will now look at outsourcing of activities to achieve greater  efficiencies and reduce overheads. This will lead to employers seeking out new hires, who are  disruptors and can find new ways for revenue to grow out of the downturn. Candidates will be  assessed for creativity and innovation of doing business. Focus will be to stay nimble and flexible in  employment contracts.  

When we look at hiring trends across functional areas, customer-facing roles such as Sales/Business  Development, Client servicing and Collections will see a positive trend. Organization will look for  candidates with dexterity and willingness to try new approaches. For staff functions, the hiring will be  deliberated, and companies will be focusing to hire only the replacement positions. Now for hiring  across experience levels, we will see a significant growth in the space of three to 10 years, namely  starting from the entry level to front-line managers. For experience level in the range of 11 to 16 years  focus will be on hiring candidates who can usher the adoption of digital culture and perform  supervisory roles, lead and guide the team to take decisions and demonstrate cost and price leadership.  I see a positive trend in this space and organizations are looking out for talent ready to board and  contribute to the growth. For experience level 16 year-plus, organizations will focus on leaders as digital culture evangelist. Candidates with the ability to manage ecosystems and dynamic business  environments and with a DNA of experimentation and innovation will be the most sought-after. 

Skilling Trends 

With a diverse and multi-generational workforce, people capability development takes the centre  stage. We are at the cusp of adopting Industry 4.0 capabilities across the BFSI domain. It is time for  leadership to reimagine the work their people do in partnership with intelligent technology. It is time  to ask themselves tough and uncomfortable questions about their organization’s readiness to  compete. Whether it is Banks, Insurance Companies, Mutual Funds, Broking or NBFCs/HFCs, everyone  is forced to adopt intelligent technology to improve customer experience, process efficiencies and  lower costs. Now as companies invest in data analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, there is  a need for new skilling being integrated into leadership, functional and behavioural development  framework. 

Leadership development will have to be focused on visioning for the future, addressing questions of  how and where the organization will focus to create value. These development frameworks will have  to develop capability to build an adaptability quotient. Intelligent technology adoption and skilling will  be part of the development programs. People skills like empathy, listening and sharing will be treated  as business skills. 

For technical and behavioural competencies, organizations will have to skill the mid-level to junior  level employees to work with intelligent technology and in turn drive the growth by boosting  capabilities. Employees working with intelligent technologies will be able to know customer  preferences and will be able to respond to changing customer needs. They will need to be skilled on  how to experiment with technology to improve sales and better customer relationships.  

To conclude, I would say that organizations will have to scale up ‘new skilling’ to enable people to  work with intelligent machines.