An increasingly tight labor market has created fierce competition for qualified loan underwriters, underscoring the importance of having productivity tools in place to help attract and retain digital-native employees.
According to a Housing Wire report, record-high mortgage loan origination volume over the past two years has created a shortage of qualified underwriters. That, in turn, has led to slower due diligence on both new mortgage originations and loans being pooled for sale to investors.
Resonating with the Workforce
Recruiting and retaining qualified underwriters is mission-critical for timely loan servicing. But finding and keeping talent in today's marketplace requires employer flexibility and a tech stack that will resonate with what workers need and want.
Financial institutions that fail to understand how important technology is for their workers will miss out on the best available talent. Today's workforce expects their employers to provide access to modern technology tools that optimize efficiency and minimize manual grunt work.
In its Future of Work in Financial Services report, Deloitte noted that millennials and other younger workers expect to work in a digital-first organization. Younger generation workers want flexible working conditions, competitive remuneration, and an organizational ethos that embraces technology.
Underwriters, in particular, want access to automation technology that streamlines repetitive and time-consuming document review and due diligence processes. Banks still reliant on legacy systems may find it increasingly difficult to retain qualified underwriters.
According to a recent survey by G2, more than half of all employees are unhappy with their current jobs because of the software tools available to them. What's more, 24% of those surveyed said not having the right software to do their jobs has made them consider looking for employment elsewhere.
The desire for better software tools is not just a fad. More than 12% of workers surveyed by G2 said that they have actually quit their jobs because of mismatched software. In a tight labor market, 12% could mean the difference between adequately staffed and under-staffed.
Overcoming the Great Resignation
One of the most significant workforce trends of 2021 has been characterized as "the great resignation." Employees are opting not to work rather than stay in a job they don't like, and vacancies are at a 10-year high. The combination of changing workforce demographics and pandemic-related office closures has put more pressure on financial institutions to redefine their workforce recruitment and retention strategies.
Ernst & Young noted that banks have to go beyond digitizing their legacy systems to improve customer experiences, decrease costs, and manage risks. Banks wanting to attract and retain highly qualified employees need to embrace new operating and business models built on technology that optimizes employee productivity.
“Old approaches to the employee-employer relationship are not working anymore," noted another Ernst & Young report. “You need to develop a new, mutually beneficial balance with your workforce to facilitate employee satisfaction while maximizing productivity and building an agile talent model."
Focusing on Employee Productivity
Today's tech-savvy workforce understands how software can improve efficiency and reduce tedious and repetitive tasks. The G2 survey found that 95% of those surveyed agreed that software makes them more productive at work.
Providing employees with the right tools is becoming a fundamental tenet of digital transformation in the financial services sector. Resource Financial Services, for example, is using automation to streamline workflow. "Our mission is to deliver the best mortgage products and solutions to our clients," said A. Wade Douroux, president and CEO of Resource Financial. "Enabling technologies like Ocrolus helps us act as a trusted partner to our customers, and allows us to continuously improve our end-to-end mortgage experience."
In the financial services sector, agility requires new strategies to make employees happier and more productive. Banks have to optimize the human capital balance sheet, noted Deloitte's Future of Work report: “Workers live on both sides of the balance sheet—they're assets, not just a cost of doing business."
As the Future of Work report pointed out, improving both customer experiences and employee productivity is inextricably connected to core technology and, increasingly, to the use of robotics and cognitive automation solutions. Workforce transformation is, in fact, a must-have.
Empowering Employees with Technology
The key for recruitment and retention is a new paradigm that treats employees like customers. Financial institutions need to give employees technology tools that streamline their ability to deal with transactional minutia and unlock their productivity. Robotic process automation, for example, reduces the monotony of repetitive tasks and frees-up underwriters to focus on more important underwriting requirements. It also improves efficiency and helps to reduce human error.
To remain competitive, financial institutions need to continuously improve their tech stacks to attract employees with the skills, data, and user-experience backgrounds needed to meet customer expectations. Automation and change in the financial services workplace are putting pressure on financial institutions to improve work environments. Looking ahead, attracting and retaining top talent is going to be a key differentiator that impacts productivity and, ultimately, customer satisfaction.
