Working with standards—post‐crisis positioning of bank advisors

• Date: 01 November 2014
• Published date: 01 November 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12033
• Author: Sidsel Lond Grosen

Working with standards—post-crisis

positioning of bank advisors

Sidsel Lond Grosen

Taking recent developments in the financial sector as its point

of departure, this article examines how bank advisors are posi-

tioned. Increased complexity in banking products and the risk

orientation that has followed the financial crisis make

demands on the quality of advice. Drawing on qualitative

interview studies in two Danish banks, the article questions

whether the dominant understanding of bank advisors as pri-

marily sales persons comprises their current positioning.

Contradictory demands on bank advisors emerge in the simul-

taneous emphasis on advisory aspects of the work and in the

imposition of new standard procedures; while one points to a

positioning as professional advisors, the other tends to under-

mine it and makes the positioning ambiguous.

Keywords: bank advisors, banking sector, financial sector,

standards, standardisation, professionalism, financial crisis,

invisible work.

Introduction

Over the last 10–15 years, research on the work of bank advisors has been mainly

focused on banks’ increased orientation towards sales and its impact on advising.

‘From tellers to sellers’, a comparativestudy of developments in the financial sectors in

nine OECD countries (Regini et al., 1999), captures a wide understanding of the sales

orientation developing from tellers to sellers. One of the conclusions drawn from this

study of a highly diverse group of countries is that the role of the frontline employee

has shifted from traditional teller and advisor to salesperson (Regini, 1999). In

Denmark, which is the setting for fieldwork, this development is the backdrop to a

common account of the transformed professional identity of bank employees

(Smistrup, 2003; Madsen, 2008; Grosen, 2009; Holt et al., 2009).

Whether the professional identities of bank advisors are still dominated by a posi-

tioning of bank advisors as ‘sellers’ is open to question. The financial sector has

undergone changes with consequences for the work of bank advisors: Increased

computer power has made way for different orientations and new demands on bank

advisors’ work (Lapavitsas and Dos Santos, 2008), and the financial crisis’ increased

focus on risk has spurred regulation to embank risk and reinforce confidence in the

financial sector (e.g. Basel II and Danish Ministry of Economy and Business, 2011).

Bank advisors have to meet large numbers of regulations and procedures in the form

of standards that have practical consequences for their daily work. Important to the

Sidsel Lond Grosen (sgrosen@ruc.dk) is an assistant professor at the Centre for Working Life

Research at Roskilde University, where she teaches working life studies and human technology rela-

tions. Grosen’s research interests include technology use in working life and work–life gender relations.

New Technology, Work and Employment 29:3

ISSN 0268-1072

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Post-crisis positioning of bank advisors 253