6. What the Financial Sector Can Learn from Other Industries About Employee Retention

Enhancing employee retention is a multifaceted process that varies across industries. Learning about some of the strategies used in healthcare, retail, hospitality, and tech sectors can help banking institutions apply best practices to improve their own retention.

1. Healthcare: Supporting Mental Health and Purpose

In the healthcare sector, firms have long understood that job satisfaction is directly linked to purpose, well-being, and belonging. For example, Home Instead and Cancer Research UK focus on the purpose, autonomy, and good relations at work of their employees in order to foster retention (Financial Times, 2024). These values are especially vital within finance, where high cultures often overlook mental well-being. By creating such cultures that focus on mental health and offer support services, finance firms can offer solutions to a major employee issue.

Lesson for finance: Implant purpose into work through values leadership and well-being support.

2. Retail: Flexible Scheduling Through Technology

Retail chains like Target and Hilton have embraced technology to introduce flexibility at work and make the employees happier. Online platforms like Work Jam allow employees to manage their schedules, swap shifts, and get training (Associated Press, 2024). This gives flexibility to increase employee morale and reduce absenteeism.

Lesson for finance: Embrace flexible working platforms and shift autonomy, particularly customer-facing or branch-based financial roles.

3. Hospitality: Training and Career Pathways

The hospitality industry experiences high staff turnover, yet companies such as Marriott have successfully fought attrition through formal training and development programs. Marriott's leadership and cross-training pipeline, as well as clear career progression (FasterCapital, 2024), both develop capabilities and serve to build transparent career advancement.

Lesson for finance: Put in place transparent career paths and leadership development programs to foster long-term employee commitment.

4. Technology: Holistic Benefits and Remote Flexibility

Technology companies such as Google and Microsoft are known to have high-level employee retention strategies, including mental health resources, extensive paid parental leave, work-from-home options, and tailored career advancement plans. According to the World Health Organization (2023), every dollar invested in mental health care yields a return on investment of four dollars in productivity and engagement.

Lesson for finance: Expand employee benefits from salary to include flexibility, family care, and mental health programs.

Practical Integration into the Financial Sector: Turning Lessons into Action

The traditionally high-performance, hierarchic culture of the financial services sector has slowly begun to adopt more human-facing retention practices drawing on models from other industries. But while there are pilot schemes and targeted initiatives, full and systemic deployment is needed to initiate lasting change.

A case in point is Standard Chartered Bank, which has implemented job rotation schemes, innovation centres, and employee recognition awards. These initiatives target the combat of role stagnation, a common ailment in traditional finance careers, and the establishment of more exciting and dynamic firm cultures. Job rotation is particularly effective in stimulating employee morale and skill diversity, where employees are able to perform in various functions and gain exposure to cross-functional interactions (Baron and Kreps, 1999). This is analogous to cross-functional training models prevalent in the hospitality and retail sectors, which improve retention by reducing drudgery and opening up new career paths.

Innovation centers, however, bring to mind practices found in the technology sector, where innovation and experimentation are fostered as part of business-as-usual. By creating environments in which employees feel comfortable contributing to strategy and experimenting with new ideas, organizations like Standard Chartered are signaling a shift towards employee autonomy and empowerment—integral aspects of both Herzberg's motivators and Maslow's esteem and self-actualization needs (Herzberg, 1966; Maslow, 1943). These dimensions are strongly linked with intrinsic motivation and long-term commitment.

But despite these developments, the majority of financial institutions still face structural and cultural barriers to full adoption. The vertical culture of the majority of banks, rigorous compliance regimes, and pressure to perform can limit space for flexible work, open communication, and experimentation. A radical shift in HR strategy, therefore, is needed, one where financial firms move from pilot schemes to embedding retention-focused practices into values, leadership, and performance measures.

Recommendations for Scalable Adoption,

• Embed Flexibility: Rather than offer hybrid work or wellness programs on a voluntary basis, embed them in policy frameworks to ensure equal access across departments.
• Institutionalize Learning: Create clear learning pathways and development ladders that replicate the tech industry's model for talent development.
• Redesign Roles for Enrichment: Implement job crafting techniques to enhance role variety, autonomy, and purpose—shown to reduce burnout and turnover (Wrzesniewski and Dutton, 2001).
• Measure and Adapt: Leverage data and talent analytics to track worker engagement, mobility, and retention in real time, such as JP Morgan Chase with its talent pipeline (Harvard Business Review, 2014).

Ultimately, banks not only need to borrow the methods from other places but also figure out how to mix them with their particular business environments. This requires top-down cultural transformation supported by commitment at the top, continuous feedback loops, and a willingness to experiment with traditional processes.

Reference List

Baron, J.N. and Kreps, D.M. (1999) Strategic Human Resources: Frameworks for General Managers. New York: Wiley.

D&H Hospitality Group (2024) 'Proven Strategies to Boost Employee Retention in Hospitality for 2024', D&H Hospitality Group. Available at: https://www.dhhospitalitygroup.com/employee-retention/ (Accessed: 13 April 2025).

eTip.io (2024) 'Employee Retention Strategies for Hospitality', eTip.io. Available at: https://etip.io/employee-retention-strategies-for-hospitality/ (Accessed: 13 April 2025).

Financial Times (2024) 'Companies adjust as social upheaval takes its toll on workers', Financial Times. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/a27e3b48-16f4-4580-aa63-39b80fb3877b (Accessed: 13 April 2025).

Harvard Business Review (2014) ‘A Market-Driven Approach to Retaining Talent’. Available at: https://hbr.org/2000/01/a-market-driven-approach-to-retaining-talent (Accessed: 13 April 2025).

Herzberg, F. (1966) Work and the Nature of Man. Cleveland: World Publishing Company.

Maslow, A.H. (1943) ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’, Psychological Review, 50(4), pp. 370–396.

Retailing Peek (2024) 'Employee Retention Strategies in Retail', Retailing Peek. Available at: https://retailingpeek.com/blog/employee-retention-strategies-in-retail/ (Accessed: 13 April 2025).

Wrzesniewski, A. and Dutton, J.E. (2001) ‘Crafting a Job: Revisioning Employees as Active Crafters of Their Work’, Academy of Management Review, 26(2), pp. 179–201.