Yet is this the real reason? Why has financial services lost its appeal? Why is gaming sexy? Let’s face it why would a young person want to work in a stuffy office, in a suit and tie wearing uncomfortable shoes when they could turn up to work looking as if they have
stumbled out of bed. Trust me I work in a building full of these people and that’s how most of them look at the start of their shift! There is a spirit of the “wildwest” and the early settlers still prevailing in the gaming sector and that freedom of a new industry does have its appeal. But with it comes the risks that not every new settlement will last, that every crop sowed will yield a harvest. But what’s the harm in trying?.   

The financial services industry has certainly matured over the last couple of decades, players have established themselves and are here for the long run. With this comes rules, procedures and the inevitable feeling of being a small cog in a big wheel with little or no innovation
left to explore. Yet this bunch of settlers knows how to harvest its crops and can withstand adverse weather with the experience of many years behind it.   

So what does the industry need to do make itself more attractive to the new talent of employees that are well educated and wanting to make a mark for themselves? Learn from the gaming industry.   

Firms should adapt their working practices to embrace not only new technologies but also meet their employee’s expectations.   

“Facebook has become the new water-cooler,” says another HR professional. “I share more personal experiences with my peers on Facebook than I have ever done before. I know what my colleagues have been up to over the weekend, what their causes and beliefs are... and it reminds me of their birthdays in time!” Social networking is not just restricted to out of hours log-ons but can be integrated into the working day just like a team meeting. Certainly the debate in the UK recently as to whether or not employees should be allowed
to log onto Facebook or MySpace shows a clear divide. I fall on the side of why not?   

But Social Networking is a double edged sword. There is sometimes too much information available to employers, and potential employees should be very wary of sharing their exploits too widely on these sites. As recruitment processes become more and more restricted, employers are turning to unofficial information sources to vet potential employees. So that embarrassing photograph of a new recruit posted on Facebook could prejudice their chances of being offered a job, or make for an interesting interview.   

Re-invention or re-engineering is nearly always tainted with connotations of redundancies, change programmes and everything that most of us detest. However, if I were to make one recommendation on how the industry can reshape itself to make itself attractive I would most certainly recommend the Investors in People process as the enabler for
this to take place.   

We underwent our own trials and tribulations during the process with a couple of staff leaving. However we experienced few difficulties in attracting new staff. A curious side
note here is that for some reason the vast majority of applicants for our vacancies are women (women far outnumber the men in the office). Even more curious is the abnormal
amount of left-handers and a disproportionate number of Scorpios, but I digress.   

The pilot programme of IiP sponsored by the Government of Gibraltar and run by the Business School of the University of Durham provided the FSC with a framework
on which its HR practices could be developed using the latest thoughts and practices. Having recently undertaken an ISO9001:2000 programme the last thing I thought we needed was another standard to grapple with.   

Yet IiP has proved itself to be more than a plaque that hangs on our wall. The mere thought processes that supported the implementation of the standard across the organisation opened up many opportunities that are too numerous to list in an article like this. All of a sudden the organisation opened itself up, warts and all and what were previously secret domains of power and information suddenly were exposed to all and sundry. Everyone could see
what the thought processes were, how decisions were made and god forbid that they were empowered to influence. How liberating for the organisation at every level. Those who take decisions can now share the weight of responsibility and those who are affected by these
decisions can be responsible for their effect.   

Formal communication within the office has also moved from a “push” to a “pull” environment. So rather than receiving e-mails and dictats from above, each employee is responsible for processing their own information from posts on team intranet websites
run and managed by each of the teams. These sites contain their business plans, work programmes, documents, links to external sites — anything they want.   

A lot of effort also went into ensuring that internal processes and learning and development were aligned to the business needs and the organisation’s strategy. This was probably our crowning glory in the IiP assessment where we are very proud of what we have
achieved.   

This is not to say that we will not lose staff to other players in the industry or to other industries. In fact, we have designed ourselves precisely to be able to cope with a staff turnover on a regular basis as we are never going to be able to compete on headline salary
amounts alone.   

What we do offer is a very attractive pasture. 

  
Time to update my Facebook Status “David is... happy to have completed another article!”