Solving the People Puzzle: Six Presidents Hash out HR Issues Relating to Communications, the Pros and Cons of a "Family" Atmosphere, Employee Burnout, and Training
2004; American Bankers Association; Volume: 96; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0194-5947
Autores Tópico(s)Leadership and Management in Organizations
ResumoCommunity banks of all sizes share a common challenge: employee communication. It is easy to assume that in a small organization travels quickly, typically that's the news that a CEO would just as soon not travel. often difficult to get a necessary message or reminder out at the same speed, if at all. Memos? Join the pile on the desk. Compliance alert? Your AAA priority will be filed with the others (whoever heard of a low-priority compliance alert), E-mail? Join the line behind the spare. Poster on the break room bulletin board? Iffy. Employee newsletters? Maybe, if they are compelling. where do you put a message that you want people to see? At Delaware National Bank, Lynda Messick, president and COO, matter-of-factly reveals a place her bank has found to be foolproof: the backs of every bathroom door in the bank. Go ahead, laugh. Messick revealed this strategy during a recent roundtable discussion among bank leaders from ABA's Community Bankers Council, the early morning group burst into spasms of laughter. But Messick, a no-nonsense banker, insists this is a channel that is usually foolproof when her bank wants employees to get the word about something. use e-mail, and, like everybody else, management does a lot of personal visits. We tried posting important notices on every bulletin board in every break room in every branch-nobody would see them. We'd go in and find out they had turned it over, put a push-pin in it, and written a pizza place's number on it. Finally they decided to publish a bright little newsletter, with lots of great graphics. On the left side it told how every branch and department was doing versus goal for the quarter, and then we had a product knowledge section, and then we had a section of news. By itself, the idea was hardly unique. The secret was in the distribution. Messick picks up the thread: put these newsletters in clear plastic folders and attach them to the backs of the doors in every bathroom in the organization. Messick says when the employee who originally did the newsletter left for another job, the bank stopped doing them for awhile. Popular acclaim brought the unusual communication channel back. When we tried to stop, we had more complaints about that than anything else that we ever did, recalls Messick. And the reason was it's there all the time. More to the point, Messick adds, the mechanism works. They know their numbers cold, which is a really cool thing. You laugh, said Messick to fellow roundtable participants, but there have been some people who, if we said, 'This announcement was posted in the break room,' would respond, 'Well, I never go in the break room.' But there is one place that they normally would go during the day, so... Encouraging staff communication This is just further testimony that bankers-from the corner office to the teller line-are busier than ever today. Roundtable members shared ways they try to punch through the everyday clutter to stimulate cross-talk and to help employees stay up to date and avoid getting stale. Robert Jones of Alabama's United Bank, for instance, said his institution started an annual tradition a few years ago. On one holiday a year, the bank is closed to customers open on the inside. The entire staff is gathered for some communications purpose. It's hard when you're spread out to get everybody together, said Jones. So we take that day and spend it entirely on compliance training and new regulations and policies. We also introduce new products and, as appropriate, we have break-out sessions. Sometimes vendor partners have also been brought in to present demonstrations of products. Jones finds there's a bonus of improved employee-to-employee communications. These affairs develop camaraderie because, while they talk to each other from office to office, employees in different locations often don't get to see each other. …
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