Encouraging Participation in Banking Training: How Do You Overcome Resistance to Change?

In the banking industry, where the culture is very conservative, traditional, and resistant to change, training their staff is a significant challenge. As a trainer, how would you encourage them to participate in the training program? What methodology can you incorporate into your training? How would you address these concerns?

I am basically a banker. I had worked in the IT department of the bank for a decade. Now, I am in the Training Department. We faced the same challenges, with the added problem in our organization being that the average age profile of the junior, middle, and senior management was around 45+.

We provided them with training in soft skills and also proposed some counseling sessions and a forum for them to vent their feelings. Try these.

Jasmine

Spi, you don't say what levels of management are resistant to training and you have not given any concrete examples of this resistance so that we can get a feel for the type of resistance you are talking about.
Speaking very generally, my advice is to put strategies in place well before the training starts. Training participants' managers will need to see training as important and this needs to be visible to the prospective participants. My advice is that you will need to work on the participants' managers through a series of group or one-on-one meetings. Without further detail, it's difficult to say more than this at this stage.
Vicki Heath
Human Resources Software and Resources
http://www.businessperform.com

Hi,

I did my Diploma project on Training, and I chose a very prominent and fast-growing bank in Sri Lanka. They have a separate Director to handle T&D, and I found out that in the banking sector, T&D is more vital than in other industries.

The higher-ranking employees were subjected to T&D biannually, focusing on training in 2 key elements: Behavioral and Managerial. Feedback about the respective managers was gathered through the subordinates, which is considered to be more accurate.

Both Executive and Non-Executive employees undergo annual training, which is far more comprehensive.

A training calendar is designed every year, and the HR staff plays a vital role in organizing the training after carrying out evaluations, etc.

In my opinion, staff may be reluctant to participate if there is no proper conduct or organization during the training sessions. They might view it as a waste of time rather than an opportunity to gain knowledge. Therefore, management should emphasize to the staff that this training is a significant opportunity for them to enhance their careers and utilize T&D as a motivational tool.

Cheers,

Ashra

Before embarking on resistance for training, kindly conduct the TNA (Training Needs Analysis) and then publish a training calendar. Subsequently, ask the Managers to nominate their juniors.

Vinod Vijapur

Hello Spi,

I am a regular trainer in the banking industry. The typical profile of the individuals is that they belong to the age bracket of 40+ and exhibit a high level of resistance to change. It is for this reason that banking took more than 15 years to incorporate computers into its operations. The training in the banking industry requires a lot of attention for soft skill training, and that is what I do, seeing the visible changes in people.

Cheers!!! Shikha Sahai

Hi all,

I am a regular trainer in banking. Very recently, we had a training session for a group of RBI officials. The basic fact is that most of them are over 40, but everyone needs a change, and change can be painful. If you guide their energy and thought process in the right direction, change becomes visible very quickly. We have witnessed this change, and the feedback has been excellent.

To start, conduct a SWOT analysis along with organizational behavior, extract insights from there, and move forward. "Soft skills" may not be a familiar term to them, but once they delve into it, the transformation is remarkable.

Thank you.