Most financial services staff want to keep working from home for up to half of the time, but are unwilling to take a pay cut for remote work. Most of them rate the perspectives in the finance industry as significantly improved.
Most bank sector employees in Switzerland are still working from home and a significant majority of them (72.11 percent) want to keep it that way. Almost 24 percent want to work up to half the time from home in the future, with 26.58 percent saying that they would like to spend 40 percent of their weekly work hours there.
However, only 16 percent are willing to take a salary cut for remote work, with 83.16 percent saying they expect to receive the same pay.
If You Had a Choice, How Often Would You Work From Home?
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The above shows several results from the 10th online survey of career perspectives in Swiss finance, which polled 1,000 people and was jointly conducted by influential industry portal finews.com and the Swiss Finance Institute (SFI). A comparison between the current survey and one held ten years ago revealed several interesting conclusions.
Cleaned Up Legacies
The current challenges for most bankers are clear. They mentioned the increasing pace of digitalization and IT competency (77.6 percent of those surveyed) as well as individual preparedness for constant change (71.6 percent) as important. Even more of them (60.27 percent) said social competence was very much in demand in an increasingly complex work environment.
The most promising career perspectives are seen in information technology (69.76 percent), legal and compliance (54.92 percent) and in wealth management, or the more traditional disciplines of asset management (46.57 percent), possibly indicating that financial institutes have now cleaned many of their legacy problems and issues.
In 2012, by comparison, legal and compliance was seen as the most promising area (71.73 percent) followed by information technology (48.07 percent) and wealth management (40.96 percent).
A Quarter of Bankers Got No Bonus
About 9.02 percent of those asked said they viewed the industry’s perspectives as «very good» and 52.22 percent as «good». This indicates a clear upwards trend in the long term. In 2012, only 2.12 percent responded with a «very good» while 28.52 percent answered «good».
The survey’s results also showed that one in four bank employees (26.44 percent) received no bonus in 2020. Another 22.72 percent said their bonus had fallen since 2019. For many, the bonus forms a substantial portion of their overall compensation. For 39.03 percent of those asked it was 10-25 percent of their annual pay and for 28.32 percent, it was up to 25-50 percent of their total compensation.
No Fairy-tale Ending
Careers in finance seem to have become more attractive in the meantime. More than half of polled (59.77 percent) recommend that graduates apply to work in closely related industries such as asset management, fund distribution and brokerages (31.34 percent), and 28.43 percent suggested they start their careers in banks. This is considerably above the results in 2012. Then only 22.12 percent recommended graduates join the banking sector while 20.00 percent recommended closely related sectors.
«Employees in Swiss finance have become more confident that the industry has achieved stability in a world dominated by IT and high complexity. They are very conscious that they must be highly flexible while continuing to develop their skills and expertise. But they also know that there will be no fairy-tale ending either – just challenging work that is adequately compensated», commented Markus Buergi, SFI Chief Financial and Operating Officer on the survey’s results.
Permanent On-the-Job Training
Most are also conscious that permanent on-the-job training and re-training will be vital in finance. Of those surveyed, 52.53 percent said they frequently attended thematic seminars, 44.58 percent of them participated in public presentations and conferences, and 21.12 percent planned to attend a course at a school of applied arts or sciences/university and 19.31 percent educated by way of exam-free courses.
There were 1,000 participants in the survey, of which 80.64 respondents were male and 16.92 percent female. Of the total, 5.26 percent were between the age of 20 and 30, 31.02 percent between 30 and 45, 51.13 percent between 45 and 60, and 12.59 percent over 60. Exactly 33.08 percent of those asked held a Master's degree from a university and 12.67 percent held a Master's degree from a school of applied sciences and arts, while 15.69 percent held a federal diploma. The survey has been held annually since 2012.
finews.com raffled off three restaurant vouchers worth 200 Swiss francs each among the participants. The winners are:
- Susanne Haury von Siebenthal, Malans
- Urs Keller, Uznach
- Seraina Benz, Zollikon
