Despite the rise of digital learning solutions globally, most learning solutions are generic, targeting behavioral, technical, and leadership skills that are needed across the board but lack specificity to particular functions or disciplines. In this article, we help you overcome this issue and succeed in creating well-tailored learning solutions for your banking and finance function.
A Comprehensive Learning Solution
A common misconception is that creating an appropriate learning solution simply involves selecting the right content. But content is not enough! Modern employees expect a well-structured and engaging learning experience that helps them achieve their career objectives. In other words, if content is king, experience is its realm.
Therefore, developing a well-tailored journey for your banking and finance professionals must involve several elements, such as the learning management system, the learning content, and the learning experience. Let’s have a breakdown of these.
1. The Learning Management System
A Learning Management System (LMS) is a software system that helps you deliver and distribute your learning content. Although it’s mainstream for organizations today to have an LMS, 50% of L&D professionals do not believe that their learning systems are fit for their workforce.
To ensure you don’t fall into this trap and, instead, select the best LMS for the training needs of your banking and finance team, these are the questions you need to ask.
- Does the LMS support in-house as well as externally developed content?
This is important, as banking and finance is a field where some content is mainstream and some would rely on proprietary organizational information. With the mainstream content, you’d be better off simply purchasing it off the shelf; with the proprietary, you’ll need to develop it in-house.
- Does the LMS support personalized learning journeys?
This is important for banking and finance because, although it sounds like one discipline, the roles inside the field are, in fact, quite diverse. Banking and finance professionals’ specializations vary from general accounting to tax accounting, private equity, investment banking, etc. In addition to that, financial regulations and accounting standards also differ per country. Personalization ensures the right content is pushed to the right audience, and with AI, this can be done with minimal cost and effort.
- Does the LMS support customization?
Customization is key to any LMS that will support banking and finance professionals, as you would need to customize the system to your unique global organizational needs. You may also need to integrate it seamlessly with your other organizational HR, talent management, or ERP systems.
- What is the level of data security of the LMS?
Since the LMS will be hosting a lot of organizational proprietary content, it must maintain high levels of information security. Hosting decisions need to be considered, with in-country hosting being the more secure option. Also, an LMS that supports the ability to customize access authority levels gives more security to your organizational data.
Our learning management system supports all of these requirements. Click here to explore it.
2. The Learning Content
Content, of course, is king. But what is the learning content that banking and finance professionals need to have in a comprehensive learning journey?
- Off-the-Shelf Functional Content
Off-the-shelf functional content is simply content specific to banking and finance that is the same across all industries and organizations. This content does not require customization.
However, it is crucial to select a trusted provider. A trusted provider would include courses accredited by international bodies such as the CFA Institute, the CAIA Association, or the IMA, created or validated by subject matter experts, and tailored to the different banking and finance roles. Some of the most common role-based learning journeys can be:
- The Asset Manager
- The Corporate Banker
- The Equity Trader
- The Investment Banker
- The Risk Manager
- The Wealth Manager
- The Sustainability Manager
- The Fintech Manager
It is crucial to note that as risk and compliance challenges continue to emerge, regulations continue to evolve, and technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Blockchain continue to influence banking and finance, you need to prioritize courses that address these specific emerging learning needs.
If you’re interested in getting access to top-tier, up-to-date, off-the-shelf banking and finance content, you can explore our banking and finance library.
- Custom Content
As clarified earlier, when it comes to banking and finance, you are inevitably going to have organizational proprietary information. That is information specific to your organization or industry. It is usually information about the market structure, customer profiles, organizational processes, or policies, all of which are specific to your organization.
With this type of content, off-the-shelf solutions will not help. You will need to create your own content, which can still be delivered and distributed using your LMS. If you have an in-house content development team, you’re good to go. If not, you may need to find a good provider that can create custom content for you. This will be content customized to your needs.
Custom content can vary in type, from self-paced sliders to whiteboard videos, animated videos, gamified experiences, system simulations, and scenario-based exercises. System and scenario-based simulations are especially helpful for banking and finance professionals since they enable learning in low-stakes environments, especially in matters related to risk and compliance.
If you’re interested in exploring custom content solutions, our dedicated custom content team at XpertLearning can help you.
- Financial Terminology
Research shows that 42% of workers state that poor communication affects cross-functional collaboration. The banking and finance world is no stranger to that. Although numbers and financial concepts are the same worldwide, financial terminology differs from one language to another.
In a world that is increasingly going global, it helps to have all your employees speak the same financial language. This is where business language learning solutions, especially those that focus on financial terminology, come into play. They help cement your banking and finance learning journey by ensuring global multi-cultural alignment across your organization.
Our business language learning solutions offer specific solutions for banking and finance professionals. Click here to explore our solutions.
3. The Learning Experience
Trusted content and an excellent LMS together make up a big part of the equation. Add to it a great learning experience, and you have the perfect learning journey for your banking and finance professionals.
There are two factors to consider here:
- Learning Effectiveness
One of the biggest learning challenges for banking and finance professionals is their busy schedules. To effectively address this issue, you must look for a learning platform that supports on-demand content access, with mobile learning support and microlearning capability. This helps learners get the learning they need when they can.
Moreover, for any learning experience to be effective, it must follow science-based learning principles and deliver content that is relevant to learners. A platform that enables the use of interactive techniques and drives personalized content recommendations can go a long way in enhancing learning effectiveness.
Our platform provides banking and finance content streaming in a Netflix-style experience, which enhances learning effectiveness. You can explore it here.
- Learning Engagement
A great learning experience is not only useful but also fun. In fact, research shows that the adoption of game-based learning in workplaces has a compound annual growth rate of 53.4%.
Therefore, learning platforms that support higher interactivity with embedded exercises and knowledge checks keep learners engaged. Also, learning platforms that support gamification elements, such as leaderboards, progress levels, and badges, make the learning experience more fun for learners, yielding higher learner commitment and completion rates.
Build a Comprehensive Learning Solution for your Banking and Finance Team
If you’re interested in building a comprehensive learning solution for your banking and finance team that addresses all their needs and combines the three elements—great content, a great LMS, and a great experience—contact us at [email protected], and one of our experts will be happy to find the best solution for you.