2. Why recognize and incentivize employees showing adaptability, creativity and inquisitiveness for digitization

 

Digitization in a sector like banking does not happen overnight. Simply investing on the best technological and security infrastructure does not guarantee a successful and smooth transition from manual systems to digital systems in banking. The role of the human resources management divisions of banks is instrumental in providing tempting reasons for the employees in different other divisions to adopt themselves to the advent of digitization.

The easiest and the smartest step with this regard is conducting a cross-sector assessment of the adaptability of employees who are already with the bank. The employees who would be thus recognized through such an assessment can be incentive as champions and front-runners of the emerging system change in the bank.

Yet another significant quality of the employees that can be beneficial for this change management process towards digitization in a bank is the inquisitiveness. Sometimes, if this inquisitiveness would be kept untapped and unattended, the numerous opportunities which could be maximized by capitalizing on that quality, would be lost to the human resources department of the bank. On the other hand, the bank will have to take swift remedial steps to mitigate the fallout of such a situation in case if the inquisitive employees would be exposed to the negative aspects such as vulnerabilities in digitized banking systems etc. which would be counter-productive for a smooth systemic transition. Hence it is important to recognize and indulge the inquisitiveness of such employees specially in the branch level so that they could be promoted as change agents in the long run when the digitized systems are expanded across the branch network.

Creativity is also a great employee attribute that would be useful in handling the customers who are reluctant to embrace the changes made in banking through digitization. The employees with creativity can be trained and deployed to attend to the issues and caveats of such customers.

As explained above, recognizing these three key attributes of employees by the human resources management division of a bank can be the best way to start reaping the benefits of digitization.

References

1. Kitsios, F., Giatsidis, I. and Kamariotou, M. (2021). Digital Transformation and Strategy in the       Banking Sector: Evaluating the Acceptance Rate of E-Services. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 7(3), p.204. doi:10.3390/joitmc7030204.

‌2. Nayanajith, D A Gayan. (2020). Impact of Digitalization on Commercial Banks. 

3. Baskerville, Richard and Capriglione, Francesco and Casalino, Nunzio, Impacts, Challenges and Trends of Digital Transformation in the Banking Sector , 2020. Law and Economics Yearly Review Journal - LEYR, Queen Mary University, London, UK, vol. 9, part 2, pp. 341-362, ISSN 2050-9014, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3835433