Tobenna Egwu, Head of Learning and Organizational Development, outlines how they upskill their staff with carefully curated programmes, certifications and internships.
As the workforce continues to change in ways that will have a lasting impact, more employees seek jobs that will invest in their self-guided career development with opportunities to upskill through training and continuous education. While learning and development programs are increasingly popular across many industries, many companies are not taking advantage of these highly beneficial programs. Apex Fintech Solutions has been at the forefront of the fintech revolution over the last decade. We invest in our people to ensure everyone can develop their career as they have always wanted. Our goal is to create a community of learning that focuses on building capacity in our managers, as the Harvard Business Review calls it, “Power to the Middle.” This sets them up for success to “reduce friction, accelerate action, and ensure [AFS] organisation achieves its vision.
Everyone at Apex comes from different backgrounds, education, job histories, and life experiences. Empowering employees to control their career development is crucial to successful learning. By investing in career development, we believe the return on that investment is retaining talented employees. Additionally, lowered attrition rates help drive our business forward. Decreasing the talent gap and building half-life skills is a strategy that will help us develop leaders and teams that adapt faster than ever to the ever-changing world alongside the adoption of AI.
While we offer our employees vast learning opportunities, we all start at the same place: our Apex Education Program (AEP). This comprehensive program teaches new employees everything they need to know about Apex, our products, and our crucial role in the fintech/financial services industry. The AEP is a self-paced eLearning program that provides learners with lessons taught by our industry professionals and allows new employees to participate in various interactive elements. We have all our employees complete a DiSC assessment, a foundational tool to help you learn how to connect with others, build relationships, collaborate, gain buy-in, and navigate communication challenges. We provide a series of courses for our teams and managers alike to develop communication strategies. To continue that essential learning, we are setting up a managerial boot camp to support and develop future managers and leaders at AFS.
Our community of learning doesn’t stop there. Apex proudly offers tuition reimbursement to all full-time employees as one of our many employee perks. Whether you want to become a certified AWS Cloud practitioner or obtain a graduate information technology degree, Apex supports those goals. We recognize that educational needs vary, so our program extends beyond traditional academic paths, catering to those seeking a professional certificate. Some of the programs that we have supported here at Apex include (but are not limited to) AWS, CompTIA A+, and Certificate of Cloud Securities Knowledge (CCSK). We work to ensure that all our employees can stay at the forefront of industry trends and advancements, so we are always open to reviewing and supporting new certification programs.
To fill in industry knowledge gaps and upskill our teams, we prepare you in your role as an engineer or business analyst by supporting other various industry-focused certifications, such as the Series 7/Securities Industry Essential (SIE) exams, which not only allow employees to trade multiple types of securities products but also build industry-leading knowledge in investment risk, taxation, equity, options, and successful client interactions.
Apex also offers opportunities for employees to complete non-certification courses through LinkedIn Learning to develop complex and essential skills that align with their goals or career opportunities. To retain interest in AI trends, we have gamified our learning. AI skills have become highly sought after in 2023, so we leveraged LinkedIn Learning to provide employees with a few curated collections to learn the basics of AI and how to leverage it to create more efficient workflows and encourage creativity. Employees could earn points of monetary value for each course they completed and even a half day of paid time off.
On top of certification and professional development programs that we support, we also offer a variety of internal career development programs. One of these programs is our Apex Leadership Development Program (ALDP). This early career program is designed for recent college graduates with a myriad of backgrounds to participate in an 18-month cross-functional training program that educates them on the various lines of business at Apex and other crucial skills needed to succeed in the financial services industry. The program also includes multiple continuing education opportunities where the previous year's cohort can take on a leadership opportunity as an ambassador to support the incoming cohort with curating learning for complex and essential skills that they find crucial to succeeding at Apex. The ALDP program also includes mentorship opportunities to guide, motivate, and explore career goals that will set them up for future success in the fintech/financial industry.
In the summer of 2023, we offered our first formal class of interns (or “fin-terns,” as we like to say). This 10-week internship program brought in college students from across the country to learn about what we do at Apex and other valuable concepts crucial to succeeding in the financial services industry. Interns worked closely with their teams throughout the summer on various projects and tasks, providing them with the necessary hands-on experience that future employers desire. The internship program included a capstone project that asked interns to research and present artificial intelligence tools their teams could leverage to enhance workflows and processes.
Overall, Apex is dedicated to investing in its employees and ensuring everyone can access the proper education for them and their desired career paths. Our understanding that our employees come from diverse professional and educational backgrounds has allowed us to provide unique learning experiences that cater to all. Our culture of learning encourages employees to take control of their own education and career development plans in a way that nurtures future success. Making learning and development a priority is one of the things that allows Apex to stand out from the rest.
This article appears in the skills, education and tech careers edition of Sync NI magazine. To receive a free copy click here.
