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9 ways banks dealt with talent management in 2022

ByChana Schoenberger
December 31, 2022 2:38 PM
San Francisco Workers Slow To Return To Office
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Banking is a people business, and this year bankers had to fight hard to hold onto their people. Beyond the ongoing debate about whether bank staffers could work remotely or had to show up in an office, bank execs continue to struggle to recruit and retain their workers. This year, we looked at banks and fintechs that are hiring veterans and other workers from diverse backgrounds. We also profiled a credit union where workers are trying to unionize, looked at a bank merger where the two institutions managed to get their cultures to work together, and considered sabbaticals in fintech. Scroll through for a look at the most interesting developments in talent management this year. 

In-person or remote work? Payments leaders weigh in.

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What's the best way to make employees happy and productive? For Umpqua Bank in Portland, Oregon, the answer since the pandemic has been to have nearly all staffers work remotely. Segpay, based in Deerfield Beach, Florida, took the opposite tack, calling all staff back to work in their offices as soon as possible in 2020. Leaders from both firms discussed how it's working for them. Read more here.

After a decade, banks remain eager to hire veterans

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Banks are one of the most-active sectors of the economy when it comes to hiring military veterans. That isn't likely to change, both for regulatory and public-relations reasons – as well as because banks recognize that many veterans have the skills needed for a career in banking.  Of the institutions on our Best Banks to Work For list this year, two-thirds said they actively focus on hiring veterans. Among the programs: working with recruitment agencies that specialize in veterans, sending staffers to job fairs for veterans, and joining initiatives to hire military workers as they finish their time in uniform. Read more here.

'We aren't being recognized': Workers try to unionize

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Lake Michigan Credit Union Workers Alliance
Banks and credit unions typically don't have unionized workers. But at one institution, Lake Michigan Credit Union in Caledonia, Michigan, workers are organizing to get recognized as a collective bargaining unit. They're not the first to do so in finance, as a new generation of young employees begins to consider whether joining a union could help them win better pay and benefits. Read more here.

The banks that nailed workplace culture after a merger

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jason cohen
When banks buy rivals, a common problem is to get the two groups of employees to work well together. Culture is intangible but deadly serious when integrating companies. One bank that has figured this out is Seacoast Banking Corp. of Florida, which spent the last 8 years buying up in-state competitors and integrating them. Over the course of this acquisition spree, Seacoast execs have learned how to put cultures together into one company. This is a hallmark of many banks on our annual Best Banks to Work For rankings, who have figured out the social side of acquisitions. Read more here.

Talent gap poses challenge as banks seek to validate lending models

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As banks struggle to make sure the models they use for lending are up to date and flexible enough to survive another financial crisis, they're facing problems hiring workers with enough specialized knowledge to perform the validations. That's because many qualified recruits are instead going to work at tech companies, which are also vying for the same pool of candidates who can work with machine learning algorithms, among other skills. Read more here.

U.S. Bancorp hikes minimum wage for second time this year

US Bank Nashville
Chana R. Schoenberger
U.S. Bank's parent company raised its minimum wage to $20 per hour in November. It was the second minimum wage hike for the Minneapolis-based bank this year, after a raise in June from $15 to $18 for its workers in the U.S. and Canada. The bank also said it would give a 3% raise to about 35,000 employees, half its workers. It was another salvo in the war for talent that reverberated among banks this year. Read more here.

Banks fight for tech talent as competitors swirl

Recruiting tech workers is especially hard for banks. They have to fight a reputation as bureaucratic and rule-bound places to work, while many tech workers would prefer to seek a job at a startup where they might have more freedom and get to innovate more. Banks are fighting back by training their existing workers for new skills and looking harder for staffers in new pools of talent. Read more here.
M&T Joins Regional-Bank Merger Rush With $7.6 Billion Deal
Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg

‘People will remember this’: All BankUnited employees get $5,000 bonus

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Last holiday season, Miami Lakes, Florida- based BankUnited recognized its employees' hard work during the previous two years of the COVID pandemic by giving every one of them $5,000. At a $7 million cost to the bank, the mass bonus was a gamble on increasing employees' goodwill toward the company. And BankUnited isn't the only bank to try increasing staffers' loyalty by writing a check. Read more here.

Why the 'war for talent' will last

Krista Snelling, president and CEO of Santa Cruz County Bank
Zephyr18/Getty Images/iStockphoto
As employee turnover recovers from low pandemic-era levels, bank executives expect to continue having a difficult time finding the right employees to fill all their open positions. One bank tasked its marketing department with helping attract staffers the way it usually sold new customers on the bank's services, and other banks have tried a variety of new ways to gain new recruits – including larger salaries. Read more here.
Chana Schoenberger
Editor-in-Chief, American Banker
Industry News Workforce management Recruiting
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