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26 Mar 2021 – Articles

A global outlook and new ways of working prepares Danske for the battle for IT talents

A new forecast from the Financial sectors employers' Association predicts that the sector will lack IT talent in 2025. At Danske Bank, we are prepared - equipped with new flexible ways of working, an attractive culture and geographical spread in where we look for talent.

The winners of the future in the financial world must be able to deliver the best in customer-friendly digital solutions - otherwise the competitors will steal all the customers. To win the race, there is a need for IT talents who can innovate in the digital development:

"We recognize from the forecast that there is a demand for the IT talents - these are conditions for all industries that are undergoing a digital transformation", says Jan Sten Olsen, Chief Technology Officer at Danske Bank. 

He points to several possibilities when it comes to attracting the necessary talent: the way of working, culture and global outlook.



New ways of working
Recently 5,000 - primarily IT employees and business developers at the bank - switched to a new way of working, which means less hierarchy and bureaucracy as well as greater flexibility in the employees' daily work.

In the future, the employees will be organized in more agile teams with the necessary competencies to handle the development process from start to finish and with freedom of action to decide how we develop the best solutions for our customers.

In addition, the experience from working at home in connection with Covid-19 has led the bank to intensify its focus on flexibility for employees in relation to working from home. Going forward it will be possible to organize working days in collaboration with the local manager, and the bank has recently launched a grant to upgrade the home office.


I believe that diversity is very beneficial for a company. It creates a positive environment, and it develops both the individual employee and our products.

Jan Sten Olsen

Chief Technology Officer, Danske Bank



Diversity
Another part of the process towards maintaining the position as an attractive workplace is a greater focus on creating diversity among employees, both in terms of cultural background, gender variation and sexual orientation. This is one of the reasons why the bank has IT development centers in Copenhagen, Aarhus, Bangalore and Vilnius:

“It does something good for our staff. I celebrate diversity and here we unite different cultures. It unites my employees that they have the same education but have different approaches to how to use digital competencies. It creates a positive environment, and it develops both the individual employee and our products,” says Jan Sten Olsen.