The current employee shortage is causing significant problems for financial institutions in the United States. Not only is it difficult for them to find talent, but keeping engagement levels high is also a challenge. Job satisfaction levels across the country continue to decline, with only 50% of banking and credit union employees being highly engaged. Additionally, at least half of the American workforce is “quietly quitting” their jobs, and over one-third of banking and credit union employees are actively looking for new employment. Lack of recognition is a primary reason why 78% of these employees leave their jobs.

Compliance teams are facing even more difficulties because they are dealing with information overload and receiving data from more sources than ever before. This situation is especially problematic during onboarding. Even seasoned employees spend about 30% of their workday searching for information. The biggest issue with this is that they have no way of knowing whether the information they find is up-to-date and current. There is no single source of truth. Additionally, the new work-from-home environment has brought on additional challenges for managers who struggle to onboard, train, and engage teams that are not physically present.

Virtual Employee Engagement Platforms (VEEPs) can help mitigate these challenges. To succeed, employees need to be connected and aligned with their organization’s values and goals. Achieving this in a remote work environment can be difficult. Historically, institutions have relied on generic engagement software, but those solutions are not suitable for the financial industry. Instead, banks and credit unions should consider Virtual Employee Engagement Platforms designed exclusively for the financial sector. These platforms can help reduce turnover, improve productivity, and limit non-compliance risk.

What is actually VEEP? A VEEP is an ecosystem that supports employee engagement and culture activation. It is a secure, web-based internal communications and information management solution that enables teams to collaborate, access resources, and share content. The data infrastructure of a VEEP also enables efficiencies across an organization.

 Here are some ways VEEPs help financial institutions:

• Streamlining Onboarding: VEEPs provide an easy and efficient way to onboard new employees. By utilizing a centralized information hub, employees have the ability to retrieve essential information at their convenience. This enables them to understand, meet, and exceed leadership goals.
• Centralizing Information: By providing a centralized, easily accessible area for essential information, employees and managers alike know where to go for critical privacy and regulatory details. This reduces the institution’s risk of non-compliance.
• Easy to Use: VEEP software allows adding content without coding. It gives an opportunity for users to contribute into making your platform engaging, vibrant, and user-friendly for employees. They can easily search the directory by site, department, branch, or workgroup, or they can use custom search features. Your employee engagement platform can be integrated with tools you teams users such as Office 365, Outlook, Active Directory, SharePoint or shared drives.
• Simplifying Communication: Employees suffer from channel overload, just like consumers. By offering a VEEP as a centralized location for corporate information and employee social engagement, employees don’t need to visit multiple sites for information. Customized alerts can also be set, allowing teams to receive information through their preferred method, such as email, news ticker, or Employee Instant Messenger.
• Reinforcing Brand and Culture: VEEPs should be branded to help institutions reinforce their corporate culture and values. It will be a place employees frequently visit, so the brand and corporate culture should be reinforced across every page.
• Centralizing Analytics: With a VEEP, financial institutions can centralize reporting and analytics, making it easier for teams to access metrics and understand the bank or credit union’s performance. They can also track goals and set strategic objectives.

Overall, VEEPs can be an incredibly valuable tool for financial institutions looking to improve employee engagement, productivity, and retention. By providing employees with a centralized location for information, collaboration, and communication, a VEEP can help to streamline operations, reduce non-compliance risk, and ensure that everyone is aligned with the goals and values of the institution.

As the workforce continues to evolve and more employees work remotely, VEEPs will become increasingly important for financial institutions. Modern companies like Ncontracts develop a plenty of solutions such as vendor, compliance, audit, enterprise risk management software, and more can be easily integrated with VEEPs to have everything connected. By embracing this technology and making it a core part of their operations, banks and credit unions can ensure that they are well-positioned to succeed in the years ahead.