17 Aug
How Can a Modern Intranet Boost Employee Experience in the Financial Service Industry?
The financial services industry which includes banks, investment houses, lenders, finance companies, real estate brokers, insurance companies, etc. saw fast changes in the past couple of years. These changes were brought by advancing technologies, changing expectations of customers, and other changes in the interconnected ecosystem. Even before the pandemic, businesses in the sector were forced to address and tackle these changes.
The success of digitalization and remote work during the pandemic foreshadowed future growth directions. In an industry so fast-changing, businesses primarily concentrate on meeting customers’ expectations by delivering a superior customer experience. But no business keen on success and even sustainability should forget that it is employee experience that delivers customer experience.
The most effective and easy way for companies to deliver a superior and humane employee experience is by using digital solutions like Employee Experience Platforms. These platforms help companies enjoy their work, contribute better, reduce costs, smoothen operations, control attritions and most importantly support the growth of organizations.
Read on to learn why employee experience (EX) is important and how EX platforms are essential to delivering it.
Good Employee Experience makes employees feel proud of their company and work
As in any other company, good Employee Experience in firms related to the financial services industry shows that the company values employees, not just customers. Research shows employee experience initiatives help employees contribute better, hence increasing profits and curbing attrition
Employee experience is even more important in the financial services sector where good customer service is crucial. EX channels like Intranets build a company’s trust and communicate its social responsibility initiatives. They also communicate a company’s business goals and strategies to its employees, inculcating in them pride in their work and company.
Modern Intranets are a channel for gathering ideas and feedback from employees
A company may take several employee engagement initiatives and strive to provide a superior employee experience. However, when compared to the non-digital ones, digital initiatives offer additional benefits. They provide an easily accessible channel to gather ideas and feedback from employees. This has assumed great importance recently, with employees seeking flexibility and hybrid working conditions.
Even when employees don’t take time to provide feedback, digital tools like Intranets gather data and provide useful insights. The tools offer knowledge of keywords employees are searching for, the pages where they spend more time, and what parts of their initiatives are working well and what’s not working that well. This helps companies evolve their EX-initiatives according to the time and needs.
Employee experience platforms help employees understand the purpose and meaning of their work
Why do employees leave a company despite good pay? Employees want to know that their work is purposeful and meaningful for the company. When they know the value of their contributions and when the company and its management recognize it, they tend to identify themselves with their work better and find it interesting.
Attrition is high in the financial services sector, especially with Gen Z. Along with a good salary and recognition, most of them seek purpose and meaning in their work.
In the current hybrid working conditions, it is quite difficult to build teams and team spirit. Employee experience platforms communicate work goals clearly and provide employees a clear idea of how their work helps their company reach important goals. Hence, they bind employees with a shared purpose of contributing to the organization.
When companies, especially banks and insurance firms, take employment initiatives, employees are more likely to take the extra mile to provide superior services to customers.
Promoting Employee wellbeing in digital workplaces
Hybrid or remote work is great. It opens huge opportunities and increases accessibility. However, it is not without its downsides. The problem with digital systems is that unless companies proactively take initiatives, the work environment would rather turn cold and impersonal.
Intranets with conversational chatbots help in providing humane interactions. Employee experience platforms can be personalized for each employee. Through EX platforms the management can send personalized greetings and notify teams about their important milestones (both business and personal). These channels are not just collaboration and communication tools, they help people celebrate together and feel a sense of security, and build camaraderie.
How do Employee Experience platforms resolve other challenges of the financial service industry?
High attrition affects the financial services industry very badly especially when most systems are getting digitalized. When an employee leaves, the company loses its accumulated and transferred knowledge of customized products, regulatory compliances, patented processes, and technologies. The move most likely benefits their competitor by providing them with crucial information about their internal processes.
Research shows that though employee experience initiatives are essential, the most important thing that makes these initiatives work is good leadership. However, senior leaders are busy dealing with customers and following industry trends that they hardly find time to communicate their ideas, knowledge, and learnings to their colleagues.
Employee experience platforms have been proven to reduce attrition. Through these platforms, the top leadership of a company can communicate with everyone and gather views and opinions.
In a Nutshell
Yesteryears intranets that were simple content repositories grew into modern employee experience platforms. They provide companies with several solutions that simplify processes and build flexible and agile organizations. They have now become indispensable for any company, more so for those in the financial services sector where employee retention and customer service determine the very sustenance of a company.
Along with the long list of benefits, these solutions are affordable, they give a higher return on investment while being scalable, flexible, and convenient to use. If you are a business committed to providing your employees a great work experience and engaging them in purposeful ways, we’re here to provide you with the right solutions that perfectly fit your needs. For more information, please visit our website.
Gina Shaw- Business Development Manager for Digital Solutions at Acuvate with over 15+ years of experience in the industry. She has helped organizations across the globe in modernizing their workplace with top-notch technologies and empowered them with world-class digital experiences by optimizing their existing systems. With her expertise in business management, she has assisted many global companies to advance towards their vision of being more productive and having a digital-ready environment.
Gina Shaw