Are Your Workforce Management Tools Helping You Achieve ...

Are Your Workforce Management Tools Helping You Achieve Your Branch Goals?

4 Questions to Help Branch Executives Ensure Staffing & Scheduling Processes Support Big Picture Branch Strategies

As digital and mobile banking tools have become more readily available

and widely adopted, many routine banking transactions have shifted

out of the branch. In response, banks are generally taking one of two

approaches to branch transformation—either paring branches back to

run as lean as possible or transitioning branches to consulting and service

centers.

Depending on your bank’s goals, there are benefits and challenges to

each approach. Many banks taking a hybrid approach—operating both

thin branches and consulting centers, but also traditional full-service

branches, drive ups, or in-store branches to serve specific neighborhoods

and markets. To support this modern network approach, banks have also

increased the use of roaming specialists, universal bankers, and part-time

employees.

The State of Branch Transformation

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This process of branch transformation has increased forecasting and

scheduling complexity across the network. Each branch style has its

own set of drivers behind the labor model; variations in opening hours,

customer traffic, and service levels all impact how many staff members

you need at what times, what roles and skills are required, and more.

Additionally, during the first wave of digital transformation, banks cut staff

and closed branches, resulting in lower NPS scores. Many banks are

now relying on an outdated strategy of using float pools and float pool

managers, due to limitations in their workforce and scheduling tools, to

ensure adequate staffing to meet their sales and service goals.

Being able to accurately forecast and schedule based on factors like

service level, queue and wait times, customer traffic, and colleague

skills or certifications ensures that you’re able to meet client needs and

expectations however they interact with your branches. With modern

workforce management processes, you can ensure every branch in your

network excels at these customer interactions in order to drive larger

branch goals.

We recommend asking four key questions to determine if it’s time for a

workforce management tooling overhaul in your network.

The Challenges of Staffing Modern Branch Networks

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Is your bank nimble enough to support modern branch strategies in the face of increasing scheduling complexity?

In legacy workforce management systems, juggling the added complexity of

part-time and floating staff is a time-consuming manual process, requiring

back-and-forth between float pool managers, regional or market-level

operations managers, and other stakeholders. Modern solutions eliminate the

need for float pools and float pool managers, saving considerable expense

and enabling you to automate fill-in scheduling at the market or branch-level

with automated notifications, bids, and acceptances via a mobile app. You can

easily account for role changes and capacity to the fifteen-minute interval as

needed for those universal roles.

Additionally, labor compliance is a growing concern at many banks, due

to the increase in part-time roles and regulations like predictability pay.

Automating your first-pass scheduling with configured business rules takes

the burden of tracking compliance off individual managers. With mobile-first

tools, they receive pop-up notifications of impending violations and resolve

them in real-time. iOS and Android mobile-native scheduling and self-service

apps can also be geofenced to help understand meal, break, and schedule

compliance. Although it may not apply in your bank’s current culture, this

approach can save on pay leakage or fines for unpaid overtime and ensure

compliance with local labor laws in real time.

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Do your scheduling systems further branch service and customer experience goals?

Many customers still prefer to visit a branch in person, particularly for more

involved sales and service concerns. It’s key to optimize staffing to meet

these customer service expectations across the network. For example, by

scheduling floating specialist at the market-level, you can ensure that even

thin branches have the right staff in place to provide expert guidance to

clients.

Modern workforce management systems can also leverage AI and machine

learning in order to align specific staff with customer appointments and other

engagement opportunities. As a result, customers experience shorter wait

times and more personalized service, driving both customer satisfaction and

sales.

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By scheduling floating specialist at the market-level, you can ensure that even

thin branches have the right staff in place to provide expert guidance to

clients.

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Do your policies regarding mobility, staffing, and scheduling reflect the value you place on your employees?

In order to have happy, engaged customers, you need to first ensure that your

front-line colleagues are happy and engaged. Banks, like most employers in

2019, are competing to attract and retain top talent. But it’s worth considering

if your workforce management policies and processes may be impeding those

efforts or holding you back from a modern working environment.

For example, a majority of banks have been slow to adopt mobile employee

self-service tools, despite touting mobile self-service for customers. While

there are some security and IT concerns around BYOD, much of the pushback

is cultural rather than practical. One top banker noted to us how native

Android or iOS employee self-service apps empower part-time colleagues—

they can pick up shifts across the market or local network, rather than being

tied to a single home branch, allowing them to work essentially full time.

Instead of being scheduled through expensive float pools, staff set their own

availability and preferences in the app, enabling the automated creation of

schedules that work for them and fill staffing gaps that otherwise exist in thin

branch networks.

Similarly, Janet Coletti, a Human Resources executive at M&T Bank, recently

spoke with BAI about winning today’s talent war. She cited the importance of

equipping people with the right technology to support work-life harmony.

With mobile-first self-service, employees have more control over their work

life and can easily request PTO, call out sick, swap shifts, and ensure they have

the scheduling flexibility they need.

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How are you streamlining work for branch staff and managers?

A recent survey from Celent found that at many large banks as much 20%

of branch colleagues’ time is spent on non-customer-facing activities. This

indicates two problems. One, without forecasting and scheduling for this

workload, you leave branch colleagues overworked and frustrated. Second,

without streamlining and organizing non-customer-facing activities like

scheduling, you have highly compensated leadership and SMEs tied up with

administrative work or corporate requests, missing customer engagement

opportunities as a result.

Mobile-first tech solutions enable you to organize, simplify, and plan

for these branch activities, like guiding open and close checklists,

completing compliance inspections, and streamlining corporate-to-branch

communications. Colleagues can even leverage bank tablets as queue

busters with modern CRM apps or engage clients in café-style, on-the-fly

conversations.

The bottom line is if your answers to these questions are not working towards

your branch goals or if your workforce management systems and processes

don’t simplify and improve the in-branch experience for both colleagues and

clients, it might be time to consider an upgrade to more modern tooling.

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Reflexis is the leading provider of workforce management and real-time

operations solutions. The Reflexis ONE for Banking platform transforms

branch banking experiences by optimizing network staffing and empowering

employee productivity. Our cloud-based platform leads the industry

providing AI-powered forecasting, optimized scheduling, and employee self-

service to empower branch staff.

We have over 18 years of experience increasing sales, reducing costs, and

enabling operational excellence for 275+ global brands.

Unleash the Power of Your Branch Colleagues

To learn more about Reflexis ONE for Banking, visit www.reflexisinc.com/banking.Phone: +1 (781) 493-3400 // E-mail: [email protected]