By Walt Williams
QNB Bank in Pennsylvania didn’t have trouble in the past filling positions to cover basic IT infrastructure needs such as server management, but that has changed in recent years. Much of today’s tech talent is specializing, focusing on coding, programming, cybersecurity and even artificial intelligence, according to Chris Cattie, chief operations and technology officer at QNB. As a result, the bank has had difficulty filling infrastructure positions.
“The other piece is the technology people who are doing infrastructure absolutely want to work remote,” Cattie says. “We’re not opposed to that either. But we found that maybe our environment may not have the biggest bells and whistles that people are looking for, on the infrastructure side.”
QNB’s experience is hardly unique. A 2023 survey of bank directors and executives by Bank Director and Chartwell Partners found that 56 percent of respondents reported difficulty in attracting and retaining talent in the past two years. That same survey found that nearly half of respondents were seeking to increase their IT and technology staff. And the overall tight job market isn’t helping, with Bureau of Labor Statistics figures showing there has been an average of less than one person seeking work for every job opening since the COVID-19 pandemic.
One solution for banks is to outsource jobs that may have previously been performed in-house, which is an option that QNB exercised. But the bank still needs talent to expand its technology services and offerings, such as employees trained in coding for robotic process automation, in which machines automate repetitive tasks.
“We’re a community bank so we do a lot with the resources we have, I cannot stress that enough,” Cattie says. “The partnerships that we have are key, so we lean on that type of expertise with our vendors, but now I’m looking at business analysts and lightlevel coders to help us figure that piece out so we can do it together.”
There are some small banks with a substantial IT structure, just as there are some large banks that outsource most of the work. Banks need to ask: What are the business and functional requirements they’re seeking from the position?
Understand your needs
Even banks of a similar size are going to have different IT needs depending on how they’re structured, and that will dictate their hiring needs, says Paul Schaus, managing partner at CCG Catalyst. There are some small banks with a substantial IT structure, just as there are some large banks that outsource most of the work. Banks need to ask: What are the business and functional requirements they’re seeking from the position?
“If you’re looking for what I call a workstation jockey, they’re a lot easier to find,” Schaus says. “If you’re looking for someone — such as with AI — to help you evaluate some of this technology and evaluate the solutions you currently have and determine if they are the right for your strategy, that’s a harder person to find. They’re out there, but they’re pricey. And the problem is a lot of them still want to build their own domain. So even though you have a great infrastructure, they didn’t build it, so they want to change it anywa.”
The biggest challenge many banks face in hiring tech talent is simply their location, he says. “There’s no magic formula, but I do see that banks will go to a managed or [shared] services type of environment when they’re located in an area where getting resources with the talent is very hard to find or hard to pay for,” Schaus says. “The problem is the good [tech talent] work in major metropolitan areas, but the salary requirements are very high. So if you’re a bank in different parts of the country, it gets very difficult to recruit really good IT talent — people that actually understand banking and understand the issues.”
Seek out partners
Still, even banks in the right locations have trouble finding tech employees. Santa Cruz County Bank, for instance, is located just 30 miles from Silicon Valley, but despite the proximity, it takes the institution time to find technologists to fill open positions, according to Jaime Manriquez, the bank’s CIO and CISO. Recently, the bank’s senior cybersecurity architect left and it took the institution nearly three months to fill the position.
“In addition to that, many technologists have no banking experience,” Manriquez says. “It’s difficult for them to hit the ground running. It typically takes, at least in my experience, anywhere from 18 months to two years. They can be the most highly skilled technical person, but it takes some time to understand the banking and fintech side of it.”
To help find talent, Santa Cruz County Bank partners with local community colleges to provide internships where students will work at the bank a minimum of 20 hours. It also has a rotational development program in which recent college graduates spend up to six months training in the bank’s various business units, after which they can decide which unit they want to go into, triggering another round of training. It isn’t a fast process — it takes well over a year for new recruits to fill in the gaps in their knowledge.
“One of the challenges that I ran into with the executive team is they asked what was taking so long if [new employees] have this skill set,” Manriquez says. “Well, they didn’t understand how an ACH works, but they understand how intrusion detection systems work. They have to learn what they’re protecting and what they’re going to be delivering to our clients.”
Find ways to keep employees engaged
Internships also have provided Queensborough National Bank and Trust in Georgia with candidates for open technology positions, according to EVP and COO Kim Kirk. One of the bank’s IT analysts interned for three summers, working in the community where he went to college. The bank also added a staffer to its business intelligence team who started as an intern, while another former intern now develops robotic process automation and scripting tools for the institution.
“That’s helped us a lot in gaining technology talent, but it’s still a war out there,” Kirk says. “Keeping the talent is just as important as getting the talent, so you must keep them engaged and keep them interested in what they’re doing and feeling challenged. Money always talks, but sometimes other things other than money matters, like being able to go to conferences and school. We’re trying to put together packages for employees to make sure that they’re continually challenged and engaged.”
One mistake banks make in that battle for tech talent is failing to see the bigger picture, according to Kirk. On paper, the lending side is where the bank makes money, while the operations side is an expense. Sometimes banks may be willing to pay up for lenders, but not put the same resources into building up their technology teams. But as banks move toward digital transformation and more automation, those tech skills are going to become increasingly important, she says.
A second mistake is failing to get past the sticker shock “because technology is not cheap,” Kirk says. “And we’re competing with much larger companies that can afford to pay up for the good talent. Putting together packages that may be attractive to employees who are looking for more than just a payback is important.”
What employees want
What benefits are tech talent looking for? In a recent webinar on talent acquisition and retention, Clare Marsch, who recently retired as SVP for training delivery at ABA, pointed to data from the American Staffing Association finding that 80 percent of all employees consider professional development and training offerings important when accepting a new job, especially among younger generations.
The same is true for retention, with data from the Conference Board showing that 60 percent of all employees are likely to leave their company if they don’t have access to professional development, continuing education, or career training. “Once they’re in a job role, if they begin to feel pigeonholed, they will be looking for their next opportunity,” Marsch says.
“Every talent manager needs to be looking at continuous education because skill sets for jobs are changing by the minute it seems as technology comes in and as new tools come available,” Marsch says. “A big example of that is AI. How does one begin to use all the tools in AI within the bank? How do you develop those skills in your existing staff? How do you experiment and start to take advantage of some of the benefits that that can bring? So upskilling and continuous learning is absolutely necessary for organizations to adapt to all the changes that are happening in the industry today.”
Set appropriate expectations
Still, banks seeking to hire tech talent are going to have to accept the fact that salaries are important, according to Viviana Campanaro, senior security and GRC solutions specialist at technology provider Jack Henry. But she notes that quality of life can also play an important role. Campanaro recently had a friend who accepted a cybersecurity position at a bank because it provided that person the opportunity to work remotely.
“Benefits were another factor,” Campanaro says. “The salary alone was okay, but the total compensation package was attractive. In terms of HR, having an organization that supports the employees and shows the love in terms of the compensation package is usually the tiebreaker when the individuals are deciding between job A or job B.”
Of course, hiring staff with certain skill sets may be out of reach for some institutions, or simply not a good fit for tier business plans. The decision to hire staff versus outsourcing the work is always a double-edged sword for banks, Campanaro says.
“It really depends on the risk appetite of each bank, and their business model and their philosophy for hiring, recruiting and retaining talent,” she says. “A lot of banks that we come in touch with obviously are looking for outsourcing arrangements where they can benefit from the economies of scale and hire consultants to help them maintain their programs with the perspective of what others are doing in their space. Others are very much in-house and they want to do it all themselves, and they want to be the best at what they do. And there’s no wrong answer. It’s all about the outcomes that you plan for you as a financial institution.”
TOOLKIT
BankTalentHQ, sponsored by ABA and many state bankers associations, offers professional services to help you build and manage your career for maximum potential for success. Post and review jobs at banktalenthq.com.
Navigate the landscape of bank talent at the ABA Annual Convention, Oct. 27-29 in New York City. Early-bird discounts are available until July 31 at aba.com/annual.
