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Photo illustration by Leanza Abucayan, CNN

What is your company doing to improve Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion? President Biden’s Cabinet serves as a model for workplace diversity!

Politics aside, let’s review President Biden’s cabinet picks: 50% of nominees for Cabinet-level positions are people of color including Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, the first female of Black and South Asian descent to hold the office of Vice President.

How diverse is the Biden Cabinet? By comparison, former President Barack Obama set the previous record for diversity with a Cabinet that was 42% people of color.

President Biden’s diverse cabinet appointments are a way of signaling broader initiatives and values – inextricably tied to policy, but also indicators of identity. Simply put his cabinet picks better reflect the American people – more than any other cabinet in history.

Diversity in the Presidential cabinet mirrors a similar, global workforce movement towards diversity at the management and executive level. Companies are increasingly striving to increase diversity because it better cultivates a sense of community within the company.

Studies show that higher rates of workplace diversity can help companies evolve, innovate, problem-solve, and be more efficient. Moreover, highly diverse workplaces offer employees a better sense of community, increased worker engagement, and a more positive corporate culture.

It’s a good bottom-line business decision, too! Companies with a more culturally and ethnically diverse executive team were 33% more likely to see above-average profits.

Above all else, employees are now demanding diversity in the workplace. Highly educated young professionals want employers to be equally committed to changing themselves. This includes hiring a more diverse workforce, helping employees of color advance through the ranks, giving them more decision-making power and facilitating uncomfortable conversations about systemic racism.

According to a recent Glassdoor survey, 76% of employees and job seekers said a diverse workforce was important when evaluating companies and job offers. Nearly half of Black and Hispanic employees and job seekers said they had quit a job after witnessing or experiencing discrimination at work. And 37% of employees and job seekers said they would not apply to a company that had negative satisfaction ratings among people of color. These numbers show that workplace diversity is driving how talent looks for jobs in the current economy.

Despite overwhelming evidence showing how diversity improves production, profitability, engagement and retention, many companies are still far from building a Management team and workforce that represents a proportionate number of women and people of color.

#HuffmanAssociates #HireAmbitiously #DiversityandInclusion #DiversityInLeadership #womeninmortgage #NAMMBA

In 2020, few people view paying a friend or family member $20 for last night’s dinner over Venmo as something extraordinary. Actions like these, by now, already seem like an ordinary function of daily life, like starting your car from the warmth of your house, or your phone reminding you when it’s time to wish your mother a happy birthday. 

But it wasn’t long ago that the transaction mentioned above was, in fact, quite revolutionary. Since then, financial technology, or fintech, has steadily invaded more channels of modern life, changing the ways in which payments are made, finances are accessed, and disrupting the traditional financial and banking industries forever. 

Initially, it was reasonable and expected for traditional banks to view fintech companies as intruders and threats to be snuffed out. Today, though, there is a trend towards more diplomatic, collaborative efforts as some banks are cleverly strategizing ways to capitalize on the ever-expanding presence of fintech. 

We’ll cover a few of these below. 

Data and Identity Security

Headlines reporting major data breaches have become so commonplace that there is a level of desensitization among the public: privacy, perhaps, is viewed now as a luxury. 

But it shouldn’t be, and there’s much to be gained from offering a future where privacy and the protection of that privacy is a right.  

Several fintech companies offer services to help track and respond to ever-increasing breaches, making the process much more effective for both the consumers and the banks that possess their information. 

Breach Clarity, for example, monitors every reported data breach in the US and then advises consumers on the best course of action to take in response. Notifying individual consumers of these breaches proved to be an issue until Breach Clarity began integrating its data protection services into banks’ digital banking platforms. 

As identity protection continues to be an important marker of financial health, banks can continue to look towards partnerships like this to enhance their connectivity and trust with their customers and open up new revenue opportunities.

Brand Reputation

A study conducted by Accenture in April of this year yielded staggering results: only 14% of consumers who experienced a financially impactful life event in the past five years sought help from their bank. The precise reason for this low percentage of consumers trusting their banks is contested, but consensus suggests much of it stems from the fallout of the 2008 recession, and, over a decade later, only a third of consumers report having high confidence in their banks.

Conversely, 75% of consumers report trusting the technology sector. Here lies the opportunity for banks who connect with respected fintech companies to offer services. Partnering with a reputable fintech company for an app, for example, can help engender trust and loyalty among a customer base. 

Wealth Transfer Management

Consider this statistic from Cerulli Associates, a Boston-based global research and consulting firm: Boomers will account for 70% of the $68 trillion in wealth that will be transferred by US households over the next 25 years. 

As posited by Forbes, many banks may be far too concerned with losing management of a portion of that massive figure listed above instead of the opportunity of capturing the management of the transfer itself. 

Traditionally, the wealth transfer process is complex and arduous for consumers, and they’d prefer not to spend time and money just to get the money that’s coming their way. A few notable fintech startups, Atticus and Trust & Will, in particular, are set to remedy this pain point with simple, user-friendly, and affordable digital services for probate, estate settlement, and estate planning.

Forbes argues the benefits of bank partnerships with fintechs in this instance as twofold. One, banks help to generate a new stream of revenue. Two, facilitating wealth transfers can better position banks to further manage the money after it’s transferred.

This is but a brief overview of potential benefits banks can reap from smart partnerships with fintech companies, and, looking forward, it is likely that the number of opportunities will only increase. Currently, fintechs represent approximately $1.6 trillion in domestic payment volume, and the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of payment volume generated by fintechs is expected to soon exceed 80%. 

Find this article helpful? For a deeper dive into the relationship opportunities between banks and fintech, follow this link to a podcast on the topic from the PaymentsJournal Podcast.

Earlier this year, we wrote about the real benefits organizations stand to gain if they strive to create a more diverse and inclusive work environment. 

In the months since we published that piece, nationwide focus on diversity and inclusion has increased exponentially. 

By now, any given organization’s D&I efforts have long moved past PR sleight of hand to display political correctness—they are now a matter of financial viability. 

The body of literature providing real, measurable evidence for the causal relationship between diversity and performance seems to double every few years. 

As more and more companies become aware of the data-backed links between diversity and productivity, the number of board members and leadership teams in financial services committed to making real efforts towards fostering D&I within their own walls also grows.

And while this trend is incredibly important, especially in financial services where diverse representation and various diversity metrics are often below the watermark of other professional industries, these initiatives too often stop at the point of acquisition, or, at the very least, are skewed too heavily towards the hire and are not focused or thoughtful enough towards what happens after. 

Nearly one out of three industry executives within financial services report that they’ve successfully hired key diversity talent only to fail at retaining them due to a lack of inclusion or engagement after they were hired. 

Put frankly, there’s a retention problem for many firms in financial services. 

For firms that report healthy diversity metrics and retention rates, however, there is one characteristic of their organization that is nearly ubiquitous: employee resource groups or ERGs. ERGs are employee-led groups focused on fostering a diverse, inclusive workplace and identifying and executing strategies to support it. 

Organizations can have LGBTQ, female-focused, and cross-generational ERGs, which, at a high level, are focused on educating employees on the differences, highlighting the strengths, and supporting the inclusion of certain groups. 

ERGs are an incredibly effective and collaborative method to expose and address specific issues or biases that may be present within a particular organization. In this case, specificity is critical because, too often, organizations attempting to enact diversity initiatives use generic solutions or a standard set of D&I strategies rather than honing in on the unique pain points of their company. 

Raise awareness of your D&I efforts and poll your organization to identify volunteers who might be passionate about participating in potential employee resource groups. One is great, but the more, the better: having multiple ERGs can help engender inclusion and belonging and drastically improve diverse employees’ retention rates.

Beyond just ERGs, another component of a holistic D&I initiative is to help diverse hires gain access to mentorship opportunities. A study from the Harvard Business Review points to the correlation between mentorships and increased engagement and, thus, healthier and more successful workplace diversity programs.

Women and underrepresented minorities consistently report valuing mentorship as a crucial part of their career development, but often cite the difficulty of identifying mentoring opportunities. To help remedy this issue, leaders can intervene by communicating with new hires and helping pair them with potential mentorships directly or help identify mentorship opportunities within their own networks. 

Beyond a sense of belonging and inclusion, diverse employees want to feel valued for their professional ability at their organization. Communicating openly about and assisting with their career development is a fruitful way to address that desire for both parties. 

Fortunately, age-old barriers of entry to underrepresented groups are crumbling due to powerful social momentum and the genuine efforts of board members and leadership teams. As we continue to witness these barriers dissolve, the impetus is now placed on those leadership teams to adequately welcome, engage, and include their diverse talent—the work isn’t done just once the hire is made.

Initially, the global pandemic dramatically disrupted virtually every existing industry worldwide. The banking and consumer lending marketplaces were no exceptions. Widespread layoffs, record unemployment spikes, and a highly uncertain future became the norm for consumers and small businesses.  However, banks and other lending institutions became inundated with the demands of forbearance requests, PPP loans, and a spike in volume due to the plummeting rate environment.

Many financial institutions quickly realized they were unprepared for such a shock to the system and scrambled to adjust strategies, adapt to a rapidly emerging new normal, and brace for further disruption. 

Several months removed from the onset of the crisis, however, across the board lenders are experiencing a continuing surge of demand month after month. Here are just a few excerpts that encapsulate the volume spikes we’re seeing.

An article published just a few days ago touches on just how starkly lenders are experiencing, frankly, explosions in demand. Rocket Companies (owners of Rocket Mortgage and Quicken Loans), a relatively fresh name on the stock exchange, recently released its Q2 results, reporting a “net revenue increase of 437% on a year-over-year basis to $5 billion. That was on the back of loan origination volume that more than doubled over that stretch of time to more than $72 billion—a new record for the company.”

Another article published recently by the Washington Post provides insight on the link between a 49-year low for the 30-year fixed rate mortgage (a record that has been set eight new times since March) and rising purchase applications:

“Purchase applications dipped slightly the last week of July, but have risen on an annual basis for an impressive 11 straight weeks,” said Bob Broeksmit, MBA president and chief executive. “Homebuyer demand has remained strong all summer because of record-low mortgage rates and households looking for more space during the ongoing pandemic. Refinance activity was more than 80 percent higher than last year and has consistently outpaced year-ago levels.”

In an effort to not deprive you of sources, yet another article from Mortgage News Daily, provides more proclamations of unprecedented numbers for lenders, beginning with sharing that builders have reached a 32-year old record this August for confidence, measured by the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI).

Providing additional context, the article reports:

“NAHB chief economist Robert Dietz said the August reading is a sign that housing continues to lead the economy forward. The demand for new single-family homes continues to be strong, he said, and low interest rates and a focus on the importance of housing has stoked buyer traffic to all-time highs as measured on the HMI. Single-family construction is also benefiting from a noticeable shift in housing demand to suburbs, exurbs and rural markets as renters and buyers seek out more affordable, lower density markets.”

After initial efforts to proceed through and emerge from the coronavirus pandemic with their teams in tact, organizations are now struggling to keep up with the pace, close the books, and analyze information quickly enough to get actionable information to their originations teams so they can react to the market as quickly as it’s moving.  

Companies that buckled down by putting key strategic efforts on hold when the pandemic started are realizing that they don’t have the structure in place to keep up with the influx of business they are experiencing. For example, many finance teams are struggling to close the month end books and analyze information quickly enough to make it actionable for their originations partners.

Without the depth and experience in finance and accounting teams leadership doesn’t have the transparency they need to manage sustainable and intelligent growth. In order to responsibly manage, lenders must be provided accurate timely data quick enough for them to react before it’s too late.

Huffman Associates provides executive search services to the mortgage and consumer lending industry nationally. We help our clients keep pace with changing times by identifying and placing the leaders needed to scale and grow their business.

It’s no secret that making a bad hire is one of the more significant fears hiring managers and the organizations they serve possess. But just how damaging can it be? How much does it really cost your business? How much does it hurt your career if you’re the one responsible for making it? 

Furthermore, how much more serious are the consequences of a bad hire as companies emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and begin to look for new talent?

In short, the answer is probably much more than you think, and, while there’s never a good time for a bad hire, today’s unique economic landscape can make those costs count double.

In this blog, we’ll share some insights and statistics* behind the costs of a bad hire and tips on how you can ensure you avoid making one.

The Hard Data Behind Bad Hires

Few realize just how expensive and far-reaching the effects of a bad hire can be on an organization, or just how often these bad hires occur. 

74% of organizations report making bad hires every year. 

How these organizations classify their bad hires fall under several different descriptors:

• 58% cite poor quality of work
• 53% cite a negative attitude
• 54% cite producing subpar work
• 50% cite the inability to work well with others
• 46% cite having attendance issues

Regardless of the specific reason that reveals how new hires reveal themselves as bad hires, often, it doesn’t take very long for organizations to realize they’ve made a mistake. 

20% of employers report they can spot a poor performer within just the first week. 

And this isn’t always just the employee’s fault: 74% of HR professionals admit to making a mistake during the hiring process. 

No matter the reason behind making a poor hiring decision, the costs to your business will manifest regardless. And they’re steep. 

74% of companies claim that hiring the wrong person costs an average of $14,900 per bad hire. 

While that figure may appear steep, and there’s, of course, a level of variance involved depending on the position, experience level, and characteristics of the organization, they can easily eclipse that figure:

• Average costs for organizations with 500 or fewer employees: $11,000
• Average costs for organizations with more than 50 employees: $22,000
• Average costs for organizations with more than 1,000 employees: $24,000

Besides just the measurable financial losses a bad hire causes a company, there are additional symptoms that present themselves as a bad hire works within your organization:

• 30% of companies waste over 50 hours hiring the wrong person
• 39% of employees reported an increase in stress after working with a bad hire
• 33% of productivity is lost when employees need to collaborate with a bad hire

Keep in mind that the above data was gathered before the coronavirus crisis. The current environment, with tighter budgets, leaner teams, and increased pressure, is even less forgiving. 

We implore organizations to tighten up their recruiting procedures, refine their interview processes, and approach their screening process with extra scrutiny as they begin to recover from the shutdowns and recruit for open positions again. 

Huffman Associates

Looking to make your next high-impact hire with confidence? Huffman Associates is here to help. Our team of veteran recruiters specializes in management and executive-level recruitment within the financial services industry.

Get in touch with us today to learn how our extensive network of proven candidates and 50 years of experience in search consultancy can help you overcome whatever hiring challenge your organization is facing. *

(all statistics gathered from ZoomInfo study)

We typically use our monthly blogs as a platform to discuss financial services trends and share our insights. But, frankly, this isn’t on our minds today. In fact, it’s far from it. Today, we want to narrow down our focus to the great humanitarian causes in which we are all engaged.

The past few months haven’t been frugal in their dispersal of hardship and tragedy. By now, few of us have been spared from some assault to the heart, body, or mind.

While we by no means would have wished the events of 2020 on anyone, we are hopeful that this will be a real opportunity for change. An opportunity to refocus on what matters. An opportunity to lift up our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and communities based solely on their innate human quality which we all share. An opportunity for goodness.

We are encouraged by all the ways in which we know you’re supporting the people, causes, and organizations that support and promote continued health, well-being, fairness,  equal protection and opportunity for the world at large. We encourage you to continue to do so, and we are inspired and pledge to do the same throughout this time of crisis, and, most importantly, after.

We look forward to the coming months as a time to heal, to look after and support our employees, neighbors, clients and friends and emerge from these times as better people than when we entered them.

We earnestly wish you the best and hope this message has found you well.

The digital transformation is well underway, asserting its effects across virtually every industry worldwide. Some, however, seem to feel the effects more heavily than others. 

Emerging digital technologies continue to course through the financial services sector, and organizations are rallying to match increased competition and surging consumer demand for seamless customer experiences across a range of services. 

Traditional models for products and services are giving way to entirely new offerings fueled by new digital capabilities and demand for greater ease of use and convenience—and this trend is only seeing its momentum build in 2020. 

Below, we’ll cover a few of the significant digital transformation trends in financial services and what it indicates for organizations going forward. 

Digital transformation initiatives are a top priority 

The radically shifting financial services landscape has caused digital transformation efforts to be an absolute business imperative for organizations large and small, old, and young. 

Virtually all (97%) of financial services firms report being at some stage of their digital transformation initiatives, whether it’s designing initial strategies or at varying stages of implementing them. 

Regardless of how robust their current strategies may be, 21% of firms also report continuing to develop digital transformation strategies as their number one digital priority. 

Emerging technologies and shifting customer demands play significant roles in these findings, but a rapid swell in new, determined competition is no small contributor.

Where once the space was dominated by a few giant institutions, today, financial services are beset with “thousands of new players, spanning all sizes, revenue ranges, and services.”

It’s critical for organizations to make informed, intentional steps to embrace and leverage digital transformation to keep pace with their peers. 

Mobile banking

One of the more prominent of the aforementioned customer-centric services emerging in financial services is the continued push towards mobile banking. 

Today, customers aren’t concerned with how immaculate the carpet, how shiny the tile or the quality of treat dish on the counter at the bank is. 

In this digital age, most people want all of their services (applying for loans, transferring funds, depositing checks, etc.) accessible from the comfort and familiarity of their smartphone. 

As human contact trends towards becoming just a quaint memory from the past, organizations face cutthroat competition to offer more and more customer-centric service to the marketplace via mobile banking. And in this race, according to Forbes, the easiest app often wins. 

Mobile pay

Mirroring the rise of mobile banking, an increasing percentage of payments can be received via mobile pay as user experience, and on-demand convenience continues to be key areas of focus. 

While this is far from breaking news, the growth of mobile payments year after year is noteworthy. Having already eclipsed $75 billion in 2016, mobile payments are expected to skyrocket to $500 billion by the end of this year. 

With 30% of Americans already making zero purchases a week with cash, these figures are only expected to climb as organizations continue to innovate their services to meet the demand for contactless payments. 

Big data

The financial services industry certainly isn’t starved for company when it comes to grappling with the demands of big data. 

One of the byproducts of the digital transformation is an overwhelming amount of information at the disposal of organizations. Along with that data comes the pressing need to leverage advanced analytics, machine learning, AI, and cloud services to make actionable use of it. 

By now, most companies have refined and optimized their processes to gather and store that data. But the answer to the question of how to best maximize the potential value and boost productivity, efficiency, profits, and customer-experience is less widely known. 

For the foreseeable future, financial services firms will continue to need to invest more resources towards developing sound data analytic practices to discover new competitive advantages and drive new market opportunities. 

The road that leads through digital transformation, while landmarked with incredible opportunity, can be a challenging one. While some firms may already well-positioned to quickly adapt to this phenomenon and deploy innovative strategies, many still need to devote major resources to upskill their employees and modify their traditional processes to compete in the digital world.  

Huffman Associates

If you’re looking to add cutting-edge talent to help your organization navigate a tumultuous business landscape, Huffman Associates is here to help. 

For over a half-century, our team of dedicated executive recruiters has partnered with great organizations to help them find the leaders they need to drive their business forward. 
Get in touch with us today to learn more.

Innovative retention strategies have long been a hot topic across all industries. 

In today’s candidate-driven market, where talent is increasingly hard to come by, this topic has gained even more traction and populates more headlines (see above) than ever before. 

Most of the attention on the topic, though, has consistently revolved around topics like developing and promoting a strong employer brand, constructing competitive benefits packages, offering trendy work perks, and, of course, pay.

While all of these components are certainly important in the effort to retain top performers, they don’t quite tell the whole story. 

Too often, organizations underestimate their leading team member’s influence on overall employee engagement, and, ultimately, their desire to keep coming and working for you every day. 

Typically, it can be more useful to explore the link between retention and leadership by looking at the effects of bad leaders. A Gallup study of more than 7,000 US adults found that 50% of people leave their job directly because of a bad manager/boss/supervisor. 

Most of the time, as the saying goes, people don’t quit their jobs, they quit their bosses. 

We’d like to redirect the narrative, though, and shed some light on all the positive ways in which good leaders can inspire greater employee retention. 

Good leaders value innovation & agility and keep their teams open, engaged, and united

Not all teams are natural fits; some require a little direction and encouragement before they can begin to gel and function optimally. Even for the ones that are natural fits, good leaders can still play a critical role in the overall cohesiveness and camaraderie present among employees. 

Average teams can become good teams, and good teams can become great teams when a great leader steps in and leads.

Regularly practicing and relying on transparency and open communications in their interactions with workers help to promote an environment where people feel engaged and involved in a group that’s larger than themselves. 

Make sure to evaluate if your leaders are champions of communication and collaboration, or if they instead assume that those traits will manifest themselves without their influence. 

Good leaders build healthy relationships with (and among) employees

This may seem too obvious to include, but we can’t overstate how valuable this is. 

When workers feel they have a healthy rapport with leaders, they are far more likely to be content with their work environment. Effective leaders take time to cultivate their relationships with individual team members, and, even more importantly, help facilitate relationships between other employees. 

Not to be confused with micromanaging, this level of internal networking helps employees feel valued within a company. And an employee who feels valued is far less likely to look for greener pastures elsewhere. 

Good leaders help employees achieve their goals 

One of the most common reasons people cite for moving on from a company is that they felt there was not a path to advance their career, or management wasn’t supportive in helping them to develop themselves professionally. 

Great leaders help employees identify their goals and develop a plan that will help them to achieve those goals. Whether that’s helping them find a mentor, providing training opportunities, or even just meeting with them monthly or quarterly to talk about what they want to accomplish long-term—all of this helps promote a sense of value among workers and encourages employees to visualize their future at their organization. 

While a workplace will always need to have a cohesive company culture and offer competitive benefits and pay, it’s crucial for an organization to have the right leaders in place to encourage employees to stick around for the long haul. 

Huffman Associates

Looking to find your next retention-inspiring, productivity-boosting leader? Huffman Associates is here to help. 
Our 50 years’ experience in executive search consultancy allows our team of veteran recruiters to consistently identify and attract top leaders across multiple practice areas. Call us today to learn how we can do it for you.