Young Talent, Old Rules – the Multi-Generational Challenge

At the recent Full FX Scandinavia event, a panel of young FX professionals shared some great insights into their experiences of working in Markets and how organisations can attract, develop, and retain their generation of talent. Their message was: agency, meaningful work and developing their human skills matter far more than an institutional brand or perceived perks. But a harder question followed from conversations afterwards – how do you let juniors earn their stripes in a workplace that is completely different to how most seniors earned theirs – and one where much of the traditional entry-level work that built careers is starting to disappear? Martina Doherty discusses

At the recent Full FX Scandinavia event, the NextGen panel I moderated delivered some great insights from three young FX professionals who spoke about their experiences in the industry and what senior leaders need to consider if they are serious about attracting and retaining young talent.

For those who weren’t there, some key takeaways were:

• Give them agency. All three panellists understood the importance of risk management in a regulated environment – but within those constraints, they want to develop their technical skills and the capabilities that universities don’t teach: judgment, curiosity, intuition, and communication. These can only be built through real responsibility and the freedom to make mistakes.
• Banks need to better sell the work they offer, not just their brand. Tech companies have mastered the art of positioning themselves as exciting places to work. But when the panellists compared notes with their peers in big tech, they realised that the work in big techs isn’t always that interesting or meaningful. In banks, the opposite is often true: early in their careers, they all worked on projects that generated P&L, or made a difference at team organisational level. This was unexpected and compelling – and not well communicated before they joined.  Banks need to do better at marketing the type of work available – not just their institutional brand or the perceived perks available.
• Capturing institutional knowledge is critical. The ageing workforce is a real challenge. Finding ways to pass expertise downstream is key for organisations and, as the panellists shared, it’s a genuine learning opportunity they are keen to embrace. But there is also a missed opportunity in the other direction. New graduates arrive with fresh academic foundations and a strong desire to contribute, but banks tend to focus on integrating them into their existing culture and workflows, so this advantage can go largely untapped. Organisations should capture it!
• Communication training matters – a lot. In an AI-dominant environment, all three panellists agreed that human skills will only grow in importance – and they want to be trained in them, particularly communication. For those in technical roles, engaging clearly with non-technical stakeholders is increasingly non-negotiable. It doesn’t always come naturally so it needs to be taught.

The audience response afterwards was overwhelmingly positive but there was also an interesting and recurring thread from the more senior attendees: while these panellists’ insights were useful, juniors still need to ‘earn their stripes’ before being given significant responsibility.

There’s a difference between knowing how something should work and knowing what to do when it doesn’t, and most of the seniors felt that this can only really be learned through real-world experience and a willingness to do the hard yards. This last piece is often lacking and something that many senior leaders grapple with – how do you let juniors earn their stripes when so many of the routes for this are no longer appropriate, or just don’t exist?

Which got me thinking: can managers actively create the conditions for juniors to earn their stripes in a realistic way that works for both sides? I think they can.

Here’s three suggestions:

1. The work environment has changed, so credibility-building tasks must now be deliberately designed

Previously, the environment provided ‘stripe-earning’ opportunities almost by default – having to know the dealer’s position in real-time, collect the team’s dry cleaning, do the breakfast runs, keep your head down when things were kicking off.  Most of this was the unglamorous “donkey work”, but it built context, resilience and credibility.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?!) a lot of this no longer exists, so it means

credibility-building projects now need to be deliberately engineered. That doesn’t mean inventing tasks or projects for the sake of it.  The work needs to be genuinely meaningful and useful – maybe something experienced team members simply haven’t had the bandwidth to tackle and isn’t high risk if it doesn’t go to plan.

I know of one senior executive who involved a junior in building a board deck and, with the board’s approval, invited her to present at the meeting.  An incredible experience and an opportunity to build real credibility, which also gave this particular junior the context for why this executive had been so nit-picky about the details! A positive follow-on is that this young individual has now become much sharper in how she collates and presents data.

2. Giving feedback must be a non-negotiable leadership skill

The public tongue lashings that many of us received were blunt, embarrassing and often uncomfortable – but they were effective in that most of us rarely got a roasting for the same thing twice. This hardly constituted feedback and thankfully today’s workplace doesn’t allow for it.  However, the current trend for vague, delayed, or no feedback at all for fear of offending isn’t necessarily a better alternative; it leaves people without any indication of whether they are performing well or not – so they have no incentive to improve or show what they might be really capable of.  Managers need to learn to deliver honest, uncomfortable feedback with precision and care – it’s a skill and one that needs to be trained.  At the very least, I recommend reading ‘Radical Candor by Kim Scott – an excellent book on giving honest feedback in a decent way.

3. Train them to work beyond machines

Automation already handles a lot today’s processes, and that will only continue as AI becomes more embedded.  But it’s human skills such judgment, relationships, and communication that will ultimately determine the quality of work. As my panellists in Copenhagen highlighted, many of these skills are developed on the job, but training is still needed to refine them – so provide it. A brilliant quantitative analyst who cannot communicate with non-technical colleagues will never have the chance to present senior management – and if they’re never given that chance, how can they earn their stripes? Give them the training, and then the practice – at team and department level – before the stakes are high.

Once stripes are earned, hold on to your people

Having said all this, one successful board meeting or P&L initiative doesn’t mean readiness for a leadership role or significant promotion – regardless of how much the individual might feel otherwise.  And that reality needs to be communicated honestly. With people working longer and the pyramid narrowing at the top, opportunities to climb the corporate ladder are now becoming more limited.  Therefore, keeping work stimulating and communicating clearly with your people will become the primary retention mechanism.

Managing people is no longer ancillary to a senior professional’s role – it IS the role. Many of us have had to adapt to how the work culture has shifted during our careers and change our behaviours accordingly, for example, recognising that what passed for banter in the nineties is not how we operate today. That same evolution is now needed in how juniors are managed – how they’re developed, given the chance to earn their stripes, and held on to once they have.