Introduction

The financial industry has to meet the biggest crisis in more than half a century. Hundreds of financial institutions went bankrupt and tax money has been spent to save banks. The current situation can be used to learn from the past in order to be better in the future. This short workshop is meant to give participants who work in of with the financial industry a better insight in the human factor in what went wrong in the banking industry in recent years, and provides possible solutions for the future.

Topics covered

Where did we go wrong? Analysis of the banking crisis from an HR perspective
By sharing experiences a shared frame of reference is created on the banking crisis with a focus on the human factor in this crisis. Were bankers encouraged to take irresponsible risks? Did reward lead to a better performance, or not?

Research on reward, performance and ethics
For decades scholars have studies behavior in organizations. Topics like ‘pay for performance’ received a lot of attention. I will give an overview of the most prominent research on this field. What is good performance for a banker? If a salesman makes his target by selling products to a client, that doesn’t need the product, is he a good salesman? After this part the participants will have a better insight in the scientific analysis of the crisis.

Way forward: what are the lessons learned from this crisis.
After having addressed what the human element was in the banking crisis, I will look at the future. Given the crisis and the public debate we have to set new rules, to prevent that others impose them on us. Possible scenarios for the future of banking are discussed.

Participants will go home with multiple options on how to change their own behavior and the behavior of the banking industry at large.