Financial services cos adopt apprenticeship to recruit talent

The financial services industry is resorting to apprenticeship models to recruit and develop talent pool for niche and new segments that are evolving within the sector, according to industry experts.
"Due to allocation of licences there is growth in banks, which demands new skills and volume. Also, with introduction of GST the sector is facing a scarcity of tax professionals with the required knowledge," TeamLease Services Vice President, NETAP (National Employability Through Apprenticeship Program) Sumit Kumar told PTI.
The sector is seeing a growth over couple of years and hence the skill shortage is becoming evident, he added.
"While the concept of apprenticeship has been there in the manufacturing sector, today the financial services sector is warming up to the concept to bridge the supply gap. Around 1,000 candidates have been employed across many leading financial services companies," he said.

The talent gap is witnesses in specialised segments, like fin-tech, payment banks, analytics among others, he said.
Echoing the view, Michael Page India Director Anshul Lodha said financial services industry is only facing lack of talent in niche and upcoming areas like digital and analytics, senior sales professionals, CxO level professionals in banking and other upcoming industries like NBFC's, housing finance companies, fin-tech firms among others.

"We have witnessed this trend only over the last 12-18 months since new banking licences were given and recent surge in non-banking financial company (NBFC), fintech and other similar areas," he added.
While lower level jobs in banking (retail and branch banking) are facing the heat of automation and digitisation leading to all major banks trimming their employee base at this level at the same time demand for specialist roles at mid to senior level have picked up great momentum in the last couple of years, he said.

"Overall, we expect lower level jobs in banking to steadily decline by 10-15 per cent every year for the next few years, whereas hiring momentum will pick up by 15-20 per cent for mid to senior level professionals," he added.
For certain niche and upcoming areas like digital or analytics, banks are resorting apprenticeship model for the last 12-18 months to bridge the supply gap, he said.
"This is on account of the fact that there aren't too many educational institutes offering specialised courses in these areas, hence leading to a supply gap," he added.
Going forward, he said, sectors including banking, aerospace, defense, telecom, automobiles are likely to adopt apprenticeship programmes to bridge talent-supply gap.

GlobalHunt Managing Director Sunil Goel said financial services industry have been one of those fastest moving and most liked industry by the professionals despite this the sector is having talent gap and is continuously training and hiring resources through apprenticeship programmes.
"Not necessarily every apprentice will end up getting job in company but 6-12 weeks programmes in financial services industries generates interest and experience and this enables them to get jobs in some financial services firms," he added.
Apprenticeship programme is going to grow going forward, he said, adding that there are collaborations hubs where education institutes and industries are coming together to create the opportunity and the talent pool.

"We have seen this happening in Food Processing industries. Any sector which are growing fast like retail, e-Commerce and robotic process automation, digital domains will need to adapt to apprenticeship programmes to build the capacity for the industry in the long term," he added.