There are so many grievous errors usually committed by bank workers, especially the junior workers, while they are just starting up their career. In this piece, we will examine some of the fatal errors usually committed and how they can in turn affect the financial output of their firm.
The errors begin at an individual level and then escalate to affect the bank as a whole. Junior workers play favorites with managing directors. More specifically, focusing on one single MD – this causes you to limit your exposure and get pinned into a single coverage group, meaning you get pigeon-holed into one sub-sector, says Simon Lewis, managing director and head of the banking & financial services practice of Page Executive and Michael Page. “Also, the MD can become dependent on you, causing your hours to suffer,” he says (Butcher, 2016). You might be wondering how this is connected to financial loss. A junior worker who limits their chances by moving close to a manager will find it very difficult to climb the ladder of success. This invariably affects their purchasing power. On the other hand, if the manager shifts activities that were supposed to be carried out by them to him/her, the primary assignment of the junior worker will suffer and this will ultimately affect the profit margin of the bank.
Not paying attention during manpower training. Investment banks will teach their juniors financial modeling, but often Excel skills and the short cuts needed to get out of the office before 2am are lacking. Slacking off on whatever training the banks provide during the first few weeks is likely to have a long-term detrimental effect on your career (Butcher, 2016). Whatever training the bank deems fit to offer you must be taken with every sense of seriousness. Usually, bank workers downplay trainings, behaving as if they had known all. On the long run, this loophole shows and if not quickly covered, the bank will lose thousands and millions of dollars. Not knowing the proper figure to insert or how to do it means the bank will have to retrain you, show you the exit door or keep losing a huge amount of money on a daily basis.
Not taking time out to network. Focusing strictly on work and not making enough of an effort to network with both peers and managers is a problem (Butcher, 2016). Any bank that will thrive on every side must understand and encourage networking. Networking creates room for opportunities. Makes employees to learn from one another and ensures that no one is suffering in silence.
“To promote your career, it is essential to network both internally as well as externally to build contacts for internal promotions and future external job moves. Unfortunately, many junior bankers work long hours, are inexperienced with the importance of building their networks and keep their heads down focusing only on their immediate work, deadlines and pressure,” said Jeanne Branthover, managing partner and the head of the global financial services practice at Boyden.
Apart from junior workers, banks as an institution also make errors concerning their usage of social media and this costs them unimaginable losses too.
The first mistake they make in this realm is ignoring social media. Most large banks have a substantial presence on the major social sites, but there are still holdouts. “Banks are starting to realize that not being on social is like not allowing employees to be on email a decade ago,” says Clara Shih, founder and CEO of social media software company Hearsay Social. “It’s time to get with the program, especially if you’re interested in customer experience. If that’s where the clients are, you have to be there” (Crosman, 2013).
The cost of doing nothing in social media? “One cost is you lose business, both on the customer acquisition side and the attrition side, because clients who expect you to engage with them in these new media and see that you’re not will go somewhere else,” Shih says. “Clients feel annoyed when you call them, yet they still want to be educated. Social media is one of the few channels where you can stay top of mind without being intrusive.” A second cost of not being on social media is that somebody else will tell your story for you if you don’t tell your own. “If you let someone else tell your story, it won’t be as accurate or as good as if you do it,” says Shih.
A third unintended consequence of avoiding social media is employees will go on anyway, and perhaps run the bank into compliance trouble. “If you have good relationship managers, they’re going to be client centric — they’re on because their customers are on,” says Shih. “If they’re on without your help, there will be all sorts of rogue activity.” This has led to the de-licensing of several reps who took to social networks without proper training (Crosman, 2013).
Another major gaffe is relying too much on automated responses. In July 2013, Bank of America got hazed in the press when an Occupy Wall Street activist wrote angry messages about the bank in chalk on the sidewalk outside a branch, and posted a tweet with a picture of himself being chased away by police. The bank’s auto-responder sent out generic “we’re here to help” tweets. Critics referred to the bank as a “tone deaf robot.” Such automated tweets come across as out of touch and inauthentic, Shih says. “You’re using the worst of email marketing, which is spam and pre-canned messages,” she says. “By bringing those practices to social media, you’re degrading the whole channel. Social media is about being authentic and being a human being” (Crosman, 2013).
Then, the last issue to be discussed here is when banks depend on keyword search. For bank relationship managers trying to attract and retain customers through social media, the typical approach is to find clues that someone is going through a major life change that would trigger a financial need (Crosman,2013).
References
Butcher, D (2016). The 10 Worst Mistakes Junior Bankers Make When They’re Just Starting Out. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/worst-mistakes-junior-bankers-make-2016-1?IR=T
Crosman, P (2013). Three Mistakes Banks Make in Social Media. Retrieved from https://www.americanbanker.com/news/three-mistakes-banks-make-in-social-media
FOS (2019). Payments Credited to the Wrong Account—or Released to the Wrong Person. Retrieved from https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/wrong-account-payments.htm