Financial sector performance doesn’t add up as companies fail their staff

Too many employees in the financial services sector are under-performing as organisations fail to provide them with
adequate support to help grow the business. This startling statement comes in the wake of research from the DfES1 which shows financial services are amongst the top three sectors reporting high skills gaps.

1 in 4 businesses in the sector claim their staff are not fully equipped to do their job, yet they are also one of the highest spenders on people development. It appears to be a case of poor investment as 9 per cent of financial services organisations spend more than 3 per cent of their sales revenue on training.

The top HR issue has been identified as staff development (52 percent).2 However, those questioned also identified barriers to training and key concerns included:

*Crass courses: one third of organisations said they could not find courses that were relevant to business needs or tailored to individual requirements

*Substitute shortage: 39 per cent said that if staff were away on courses or given study leave they had difficulty finding appropriate levels of cover to ensure the work was still done

*Timed out: almost half (48 per cent) said that training programmes took staff away from their desks for too much time

Christine Hayhurst, director of professional affairs at the Chartered Management Institute, says: Pension services are highly regulated and although many employees tend to be technically well qualified, they often lack the wider skills and knowledge necessary to engage colleagues, customers and contractors. Yet, to succeed, organisations must ensure their employees are kept up to date with the latest rules and regulations and also equipped to meet the managerial demands of a competitive environment.

Responding to the obstacles to training, the Chartered Management Institute is launching a new service for organisations in the pensions services sector. Called ’Modular Development,’ the scheme will offer flexible programmes that can be completed in a time-frame to suit employees and their organisations. Businesses will also have the opportunity to tailor courses to their own needs, focusing on topics including developing impact and influence, team leadership, communication management, meeting customer needs and improving organisational performance.

The programme has been launched following a successful project involving Lloyds TSB. Richard Hall, HR Manager (Accredited Programmes) at Lloyds TSB, says: The main driver for investment in management development for us is to have managers performing in their management role to a high standard. This scheme links with driving workplace learning, enabling people to do things differently and to actually put in practice what they have learnt.

The scheme will give organisations the choice to use the modules to ’gain points’ towards formal qualifications for their staff, which are linked to the new national occupational standards for management and leadership. The Standards have been developed in response to Government-backed studies showing that poor management is holding back
the UK economy. They can be used as a benchmark to monitor
performance and are freely available to download by visiting www.management-standards.org.

Hayhurst adds: It is clear that the pensions sector recognises the need to improve competency levels, but for this to work effectively organisations need practical and flexible development which may include - but doesn’t insist on - qualification. If that happens a culture in which management development is possible will be created and the demand for better management will be met.

Details about the programme can be viewed online by visiting