Despite being one of the biggest investors in people development too many employees in the financial services sector are under-performing; this news comes in the wake of DfES research which shows that the sector is amongst the top three reporting high skills gaps.
Nine per cent of financial services organisations spend more than 3% of their sales revenue on training but the investment doesn’t appear to be paying off for one in four businesses who claim their staff are not fully equipped to do their job.
Topping the HR agenda is staff development which was cited by 52% of respondents as a key issue.
Other identified training barriers include:
- 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% 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%) 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 (CMI) said:
“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.”
In response to these findings the CMI is launching a new service for organisations working in the pensions services sector.
Details about the programme can be viewed online.
