4. How to establish a better rapport and centralize the services of Information Technology Divisions in the bank?

In a security-conscious and trust-oriented sector like banking, the majority of employees are skeptical about experimenting with new technologies. They do have good reasons for this as well. However, building trust between the information technology division and other related divisions with the rest of the staff in the bank, can eliminate many of these trust and confidence issues.

Inviting the ICT division staff to sit through the training on digital systems provided for the other banking staff is a nice way to kick start this process. The ICT division staff can be encouraged and perhaps even trained in advance to voluntarily come forward and support the rest of the staff members in navigating difficulties and challenges they encounter during training. Even the training related activities can be designed in such a way that the input of the ICT division staff becomes essential for the other staff to complete certain steps of the training. Thus the confidence and trust of the non-ICT staff in the bank towards their ICT division colleagues could be improved and thereby, a good rapport between them can be established.

These kinds of strategies also help create a comfort zone for other banking staff to easily approach the ICT division staff in the event when a problem arises. It also provides exposure for the ICT staff to holistically look at various banking issues having ventured beyond their technological perspectives on such matters.

One of the often observed problems in digitizing the banking sector stems from different knowledge and exposure levels of the ICT staffs in different bank branches. Therefore, it is vital to decentralize the services provided by the ICT division so that all the employees regardless of their bank location, get access to equal levels of services whenever they encounter problems with handling digital tech applications and equipment. Such measures could also establish a unified network of resources which could be easily accessible for bank employees at all levels.

Hence based on the above observations and recommendations, establishing a good relationship between bank employees and the ICT staff as well as the decentralization of ICT services is key to the smooth functioning in a digitized banking system.

References

He, D., K. You, W. Li, and J. Wu. (2019). Determinants of Technology Adoption: Evidence from the Chinese Banking Industry, Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, 1–23.

SearchHRSoftware. (n.d.). What is digital HR? - Definition from WhatIs.com. [online] Available at: https://searchhrsoftware.techtarget.com/definition/digital-HR#:~:text=Digital%20HR%20is%20the%20digital [Accessed 15 Nov. 2021].

Tripathi, R. and Kushwaha, P. (2017). National Seminar on Digital Transformation of Business in India: Opportunities and Challenges. Dehradun. A study on Innovative Practices in Digital Human Resource Management. 25 Jan.