Davies Group’s Carolyn Blunt and Richard Dodds speak to Asset Servicing Times about the difficulties in recruiting and training new staff
As Kim Kardashian once said, “It seems like nobody wants to work these days.”
Whilst many may scoff at taking Kardashian’s words as gospel, there are serious and widespread criticisms levelled at young people and their attitudes towards work. You only need to do a quick Google search to find hundreds upon thousands of various apparent surveys of young people who ‘don’t want to work’.
Who are these young people that don’t want to work? There are a number of terms to describe them. Some might call them Gen-Z, the TikTok Generation, skinny jean killers, avocado eaters or oat latte drinkers.
But, do they really not want to work? Or are young people’s attitudes no longer conducive to a career in financial services?
Selling finance
“In attracting young talent to the [financial services] sector, we’re up against it a little bit.” Carolyn Blunt, vice president of academy talent solutions at Davies Group explains. “Unless they’ve been exposed to the industry by family, it’s not necessarily an area they gravitate to.”
Blunt oversees part of the recruitment and training process of young people for Davies, which includes former financial services consulting firm Sionic. She raised her concerns about the industry to Asset Servicing Times at the end of 2023.
Now, a couple of months later and after walking into their offices — which catch the eye with an almost intimidating modernity, slickness and professionalism — Blunt takes us into a separate meeting room complete with its own digital calendar and booking system.
Aside from the impressive office building, fancy elevator system and state-of-the-art technology systems, what could draw a young person to work here?
“I can’t say I’ve met a kid at 16 or 18 who has said, my passion is assets.” Blunt laughs. “They just don’t know what it is and they don’t know how to find that passion. Leaders and mentors in the sector have to help them find the benefit of that.
“A lot of people don’t know the industry, so it’s about demystifying and simplifying it.”
As Blunt suggests, many young people are unaware what asset servicing is or what a career in the industry would offer. Without already knowing anyone in the industry, be it a friend or family member, it could just look like any finance job.
This can become a particular stumbling block in the initial attraction of new recruits and has resulted in a shift to targeting UCAS events and visiting schools and university career fairs. “Having a visible career pathway and progression is appealing to young people, particularly graduate and apprenticeship schemes,” Blunt says.
Richard Dodds, partner at Davies, adds further detail. He says: “Asset servicing, and especially graduate schemes, are still attractive to young people. Saying that, it’s important for companies to emphasise their company vision and purpose, how they’re focused on servicing all their key stakeholders, but especially their staff, their communities and the environment, not just shareholders and management.”
He continues: “Asset servicing is at the forefront of technical evolution and development. New data strategies and technology are transforming the industry and breaking down the barriers to entry for new companies and there are many fintech firms entering the market, which are creating new roles.
Returning to Blunt, she says: “Young people are then looking at the culture of the firm, how they can be impactful in a broader sense than just making more money for people who’ve already got a lot of money — examining whether they can impact the ESG element.
“Young people see the sector as quite traditional and they want to do more than just make money. They want something that’s going to be valuable and do good to the world, not just their own pockets.”
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), adults in Great Britain aged between 16 and 25, who would be classed as Gen-Z and a target for recruitment into the financial services industry, are the age group with the highest proportion of people, 33 per cent, who felt ‘very worried’ about the impact of climate change.
If one-third of all potential young recruits are ‘very worried’ about climate change, then a firm’s ESG strategy could be a swing factor and a potential draw.
“They might think, ‘I am potentially interested in a career in financial services, but actually, I am most interested in elements of that which will impact ESG the most. How are we going to move to green energy? How are we dealing with climate change? How can we mitigate floods and disasters?’ That’s what is appealing to young people,” Blunt says.
Perhaps catching my glances at the fancy gadgets and screens around the room, Blunt continues to credit the impressive growth of technology in the sector. She explains, wide-eyed, that the “technology side is very exciting. It can be very creative and there has been a rapid shift from paper-based to platform-led delivery, which is all very data-driven. That does excite the next generation of talent.”
Yet, the growth of technology may have made teaching young people more difficult.
Mic off, camera off
One of the greatest shifts in the industry as a result of Covid-19 was the growing reliance on technology, which has left a legacy of Zoom, Teams and Google Meet calls. A survey conducted by the ONS in February 2022 found that 84 per cent of workers who had to work from home during the pandemic planned to carry on a hybrid scheme of working.
This has also been reflected in the recruitment into the asset servicing industry as Dodds has identified. He says: “Young people who perhaps have parents that used to traipse into a City office, on inefficient public transport, five days a week did not see the industry as attractive. However, with more flexible working conditions and typically higher than average salaries, the roles are more appealing. Candidates are insisting on more flexible work and are less willing to compromise on an equitable work/life balance, with less time in the office, alongside a reasonable salary for hours worked, even if WFH. This is not necessarily a bad thing; it just means certain roles that require more in office presence are more challenging to fill.”
Blunt is exasperated as she talks about her struggles with online teaching and the dread of having young people refuse to turn on their cameras and microphones in a group call.
However, Blunt does not want to put blame on young people. She says: “If nobody’s helped them make that transition into working life then starting can be quite daunting. They can be quiet and nervous. There’s an embarrassment factor; they don’t want to put themselves out there and stand out too much.”
Blunt goes further to suggest that young people are willing to return to in-person work, but that this has been made more difficult by the pandemic.
Pandemic lockdowns prevented young people from taking exams, going to parties, graduations or enjoying a real university experience. Blunt considers the impact this has had on their approaches to working in a career in asset servicing.
“They might have missed out on building relationships. It can be quite isolating if you’re still living at home with your parents, and all of your work is online. They missed out on so much developmental experience that you absorb through osmosis.”
The impact of this is key to the struggles young people face in entering a working career.
The generation gap
“I think the resilience [of some young people] is quite low,” Blunt explains. “As a result of the pandemic, they haven’t built up that experience of dealing with difficult face-to-face interactions.”
Not convinced by the argument, I question whether the problem is that pressures on young people today far exceed those of previous generations, particularly given social media’s omnipresent existence in their lives, rather than young people demonstrating a lack of resilience.
On social media a person can filter, edit and shape their posts to how they want to be perceived. Does that then bring added pressure in person when they don’t have a filter, they can’t edit what they say and their mistakes can’t be deleted?
“That’s a really good observation.” Blunt says, “It’s that ability to filter and project what you want online that’s impacted in-life person interaction. It’s almost safer to just sit back and see how it plays out before you put your head above the parapet.
“Social media brings a huge pressure to look good, be popular, cool and have this perfect life. But that’s not a real projection.”
The growth of technology and social media has created a necessity for young people to be constantly online, but Blunt assesses that that has had severe consequences.
“When I was a kid, if you were bullied at school, you came home and shut the front door and they couldn’t get to you. Now, it’s just constant.” She tails off, pausing for a moment to think. “I am a parent of teenagers and you need to watch for those signs in your kids. It’s difficult. Suicide is something that, unfortunately, is very prevalent with young people and you need to watch for the signs”
How are these online stresses on young people dealt with by the older generation?
Blunt continues, “Work might be one of the few times where a young person has an in-person interaction with someone outside of their immediate family that week. This can often mean the line manager becomes a life coach and has to take on the burden young people are suffering in their personal lives. These managers don’t know how to deal with this. It’s hard work, it’s scary and things are not how they were when they were that age. We’ve got to support those line managers.”
If young and older generations are unable to understand each other’s problems, how can young people be supported early in their careers?
See it, be it
For Blunt, the solution appears possible, but she realises that it may be complicated — owing to traditional, deep-rooted issues in the industry.
“Young people need others they can relate to in the sector.” Blunt emphasises, “It is far better to have that than some senior person coming to talk to them who’s been in the industry for 30 years. That’s like their parents talking to them.”
If young people are unable to relate to others in the sector, Blunt explains that they are far more likely to drop out of the industry. Blunt says, “If we don’t manage to change, then that is never going to change. It is a case of if you can’t see it, you can’t be it.”
The difficulty faced by recruiters and those in the asset servicing industry can be in finding diversity. “The financial services sector is in this square mile.” Blunt draws an imaginary square with her hands, mapping out St Pauls and Bank.
“I do worry, particularly as a northerner myself, that young people from other locations who don’t have the money to spend on train tickets and posh coffees won’t want to come. If we don’t change the dynamic and diversity of the sector then the problem just perpetuates.”
As we reach the closing stages of our meeting, demonstrated clearly by the large interactive timetable mounted on the wall, the conversation shifts to the worth of young people to financial services.
If many older people are struggling to adapt to the needs of training young people in the industry, could employers switch their focus to employing those with experience already — a pre-made model in many regards?
Blunt takes the analogy further. “Recruiting and training staff is a bit like working on an asset servicing platform.
“ A firm can decide whether they want to buy some technology in or develop it in-house — and the same applies to talent. You can either buy the talent in or you can build that talent from the grassroots up in-house. Neither is necessarily perfect.”
Whilst it may seem a little reductive to limit each employee to a piece of technology in the industry, Blunt finds clarity in the analogy. She explains,“One might be a quicker win and one might be a slower burn.”
Blunt concludes warmly, offering sympathy and understanding to the difficulties young people face in employment.
She opens up on the value she finds in seeing those young trainees grow up through the company into important positions. She can watch them grow.
Blunt smiles sympathetically, as if calling on the entire industry to be patient with young people: “If you build those young people up yourself, they will be more what you are looking for. You will have had that opportunity to shape and mould them into the employees you need.”
