Why the Next Generation of finance professionals & career bankers need each other...

The finance industry is being overhauled due to technology and generational shift is under way. Generation X and soon to be Y is in the minority, so how can we all leverage banking wisdom and social media skills in between the generations?

I recently met with 25 young adults who are interested in a banking career. When I asked them how many social media accounts they had, on average they had 4 or more. Comparing this with the current workforce, Generation X and Y, the number would be around 2-3.

This next wave have no problem communicating via video and streaming their updates to their followers. However they are random, spontaneous and lack strategic thinking.

Career bankers are Generation X & Y bankers who have worked in the industry for tens of years, they are introverted by nature and have been cocooned by the banking organisation. However these bankers do know a thing or two about traditional service. So if Generation X and some Y expect to stay in the finance industry for the next 15-20 years how will these employees remain relevant with the rapidly changing technology landscape?

The answer for Generation X and Y can include embracing new ways to operate and accepting that the environment is never going to stand still any longer. Constant innovation and iteration is required in order to remain involved in the industry. Its actually a hard thing to do for the long term career bankers, due to the fact that they have been able to work predominately with vastly outdated banking systems and paper based processes. So to make the shift needs the mindset needs to change to being innovative and leaders need to be role models.

Usually embedding change in behaviors needs to be actively role modeled by senior & middle leaders, however in the banking industry much of the leadership is predominately Generation X so what to do?

One of the ways could include education on technology that is aligned with strategy. As providing stand alone technology education will be meaningless unless the participants understand how it links to their individual role, the organisations role/purpose and how it will deliver a valuable consumer experience.

Therefore having deliberate mix of generation of bankers together to solve for learning how to use technology and then apply strategy to understand how this helps the consumer can be the answer. The longer term bankers have the wisdom and the next generation have the technical skill.