What are power skills? – Independent Banker

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The skills needed to succeed in the workplace are changing, with companies placing more value on soft skills like communication and leadership. In response, village banks have the opportunity to review hiring policies and training programs.

By Roshan MacArthur

The use of digital technology and artificial intelligence has dramatically changed the workplace in recent decades, but the pandemic accelerated this change by forcing remote work and boosting online commerce. As a result, the skills needed in all businesses, including community banks, are changing.

According to an analysis by the McKinsey Global Institute, the need for basic manual and cognitive skills is declining due to increased automation, while the demand for what used to be called “soft skills” is increasing.

Soft skills are personal attributes, not traditionally taught but often acquired in the workplace, that enable employees to interact well with others, both socially and emotionally. But, according to Lindsay LaNore, ICBA’s director of learning and experience, there’s really nothing quite so “soft” about them. And that’s why professionals in the learning and development space are increasingly referring to them as “power skills.”

Power abilities, in essence, are those that cannot be replaced by artificial intelligence. Therefore, employees will increasingly need skills that differentiate them from machines but also work well in the digital age and help them adapt to new ways of working.

A compassionate approach

Kirsti Coghlan, director of human resources for the $600 million Mauch Chunk Trust Company (MCT) in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, learned the value of skills like these during the pandemic. In the past, she says, community bank hiring strategies have typically relied heavily on traditional banking experience, with an emphasis on the candidate’s sales ability. When COVID hit, that changed radically.

The bank found itself accepting applications from nurses, certified nursing assistants, and home health aides, all of whom were seeking new career opportunities.

“Health care workers have the ability to classify intuitively,” says Coghlan. “They would use their caretaker personalities, and that became behaviors for the customer service experience.”

The caregivers’ ability to empathize with clients turned out to be a boon for MCT, especially when dealing with difficult emotional issues. “We have seen an incredible increase in fraud,” she adds. “So, the patience that a caregiver would have to sit down with someone who is experiencing issues and work through that dynamic, that’s a different personality set or critical skill set that you would have in a traditional banker.

“The traditional banker might say, ‘Okay, let’s close your checking account, let’s stop your debit and credit cards.’ The caregiver is going to say, ‘This must be devastating for you. How can we continue to support the family?’ Coghlan continues. “Being a community bank, our clients are our neighbors. So we need to be aware of what else we can do to support them, other than mechanical step A, step B, step C.”

This led MCT to launch new training initiatives. If the candidates were not coming from a traditional banking background, the community bank knew it needed to provide them with a solid knowledge base, while thinking more creatively about their leadership development and career advancement opportunities. As a result, it now provides levels of progressive advancement within multiple departments, creating cross-functional opportunities and expanding the knowledge base of employees by leveraging their critical thinking skills.

The ability to think critically and use intuition comes into play when identifying fraud, a skill set that Coghlan believes goes beyond required training in topics like phishing scams, and is essential to protecting banks and their clients in the future. That critical skill set, he explains, helps bankers ask questions, “without being nosy, not belligerent, not nosy, but smart enough to think, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not a typical transaction for ti, let’s investigate this a little further.’”

Coghlan encourages other banking leaders to follow suit by leveraging skill sets from other industries and reexamining “the pre-established notion that you have to have pre-existing banking experience.”

“You still need the ability to crunch numbers, you still need to have your basic credits and debits, or your accounting basics, but that can be taught,” she says. “With the market the way it is, I would say broaden this perspective, take off the traditional blinders and look at things that might surprise you.”

roshan mcarthur is a writer in California.