Remote work is becoming more common and challenging in the Financial Technology (Fintech) sector, where innovation, collaboration, and security are essential. How can you build resilience in a remote Fintech work environment and thrive in the face of uncertainty, stress, and change? Here are some tips to help you adapt and grow as a remote Fintech professional.
One of the first steps to building resilience is to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve and why. Setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals can help you focus on what matters most and track your progress. Prioritizing your tasks and projects can also help you manage your time and energy more effectively and avoid distractions and procrastination.
This is an absolute must - and I would go a mile further and suggest trying to ‘product manage’ your life to a certain extend. Set clear goals you’d like to achieve within the next 3, 6, 12 and 24 months. Work backwards, understand what exactly needs to be done to get there. Use Jira Work Management with a kanban view, to set/categorize/prioritize all of your personal and professional tasks, make sure they’re SMART. Set the duration of your sprint (1/2 weeks), and aim to complete an X amount of tasks per sprint. Make sure that overtime you’re completing enough work to get to the goals you set at the beginning.
Cultivate resilience by fostering clear communication channels and emphasizing work-life balance. Establish regular virtual check-ins to maintain team connectivity, encouraging collaboration and mutual support. Prioritize mental health with wellness initiatives and flexible schedules. Embrace adaptability, encourage skill-building, and foster a positive team culture. By nurturing a resilient mindset, remote teams in the FinTech sector can effectively navigate challenges and thrive in the dynamic landscape of financial technology.
A growth mindset is the belief that you can learn and improve your skills and abilities through effort, feedback, and practice. A growth mindset can help you embrace challenges, learn from mistakes, and seek new opportunities to grow as a remote Fintech professional. To develop a growth mindset, you can use positive affirmations, celebrate your achievements, seek constructive feedback, and take on new projects that stretch your skills.
World of fintech is a dynamic and challenging landscape, marked by technological intricacies and regulatory demands. While finance itself may not be as complex as rocket science, the industry presents numerous points of vulnerability and difficulty. In the face of these challenges, fostering a clear vision and mission is essential. This clarity serves as a catalyst for cultivating a growth mindset, enabling individuals and organizations to confront and overcome the obstacles that lie ahead
Working remotely can sometimes feel isolating and stressful, especially in the fast-paced and competitive Fintech sector. That's why it's important to build a supportive network of colleagues, mentors, peers, and friends who can help you cope with challenges, share ideas, and provide feedback and encouragement. You can build your network by communicating regularly, joining online communities, attending virtual events, and asking for help when you need it.
One of the effective ways to build your network and to continuously deepen your insights is to form working group with specific topic of interest in finance and technology. It can be created in LinkedIn group where you can co-create articles on specific topic. This will not only build your network but also continuously deepen your insights in specific topic.
That’s key to any field, not just fintech. But yes, LinkedIn should be your number 1 tool, and luckily, people in our field are quite active on LN, open minded and helpful - I highly recommend building a list of organizations you’re deeply interested in, analyzing the people who work there, connecting with a few hundreds of them, and setting up a few dozens of calls to see how you could potentially support one another. This would also help you filter out the people that you’d like to have in your network, as well as define their ‘roles’, ie. it’d take you quite some time to find the person who you’d like to be your mentor, etc. Good luck!
Another key to building resilience is to take care of your physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Working remotely can blur the boundaries between work and life, so you need to set clear expectations, boundaries, and routines that help you maintain a healthy balance. Some ways to do this are to create a comfortable and ergonomic workspace, schedule regular breaks, exercise, meditate, eat well, sleep enough, and pursue your hobbies and interests.
Work/life balance with plenty of daily movement should be at the core of what you do - that’s how you achieve maximum performance at work. I suggest completing high-intensity training sessions once every 2 days.
The Fintech sector is constantly evolving and changing, so you need to be flexible and adaptable to keep up with the latest trends, technologies, and regulations. Being flexible and adaptable means being open to new ideas, perspectives, and approaches, and being willing to adjust your plans, strategies, and methods when needed. You can enhance your flexibility and adaptability by staying curious, learning new skills, experimenting with different tools, and embracing change as an opportunity.
Finally, building resilience in a remote Fintech work environment also means seeking opportunities for innovation and creativity. Innovation is the driving force behind the Fintech sector, and it can help you solve problems, create value, and stand out from the crowd. You can foster innovation by brainstorming, researching, collaborating, testing, and iterating your ideas, and by applying design thinking, agile, and lean principles to your work.
When considering to innovate in certain topics in financial technology is to consider having dialogue with adjacent industries such as insurance, consumer, and energy for banking sector. You would want to assess the happening in adjacent industries and consider whether this may occur in your Industry. To prevent from being disrupted, it would be effective to partner proactively.