Improving Bankers’ Behavior for Sustained Performance
Key Takeaways from the CBA LIVE Panel Discussion
By Jim Bywater
On March 8th, 2022, I was joined by Shaun McDougall of Wells Fargo, Shawn O’Brien of Atlantic Union Bank and Heather Wojcik of Santander to discuss improving bankers’ behaviors for sustained performance. Below are the topics that we discussed and key takeaways.
Are bankers developing the required skills so that they consistently engage customers and have relevant conversations that are aligned to customer needs?
The panelists and the audience (by a show of hands) widely agreed that the answer is that they are not. Even when they are supplied with training the implementation of the training is low and typically is not sustained.
What are some of the challenges preventing bankers from delivering on the desired behaviors consistently?
Complexity. The banking industry tends to take something simple and overcomplicate it. Banks need to ensure to keep the customer conversation framework simple for both the banker and customer.
Lack of follow up. Training bankers and managers on skillsets is only half of the equation. Following up to ensure that the behaviors that were trained are being implemented with the right quality is essential. Most managers do not follow up with regularity or in sufficient detail.
COVID. The impact of COVID and vacancies have influenced the time that bankers had to have the relevant conversations with customers.
There has been a huge investment by banks to support digital on-boarding of customers. Is digital on-boarding delivering the same or better business performance as face-to-face interactions?
A Curinos study showed that after 4 months, the new to bank balances originated in branches were up to ten times higher than those originated digitally.
The panelists agreed that while digital on-boarding offers convenience, to fully maximize digital on-boarding, bankers must follow up to discover and fulfill additional needs.
Are leaders properly observing and coaching for the three key banker-customer interactions (On-boarding, deepening relationships and solving complex issues) to drive the greatest impact?
The general consensus among the panel was that leaders were not observing the behaviors with enough frequency with sufficient detail. The below reasons were discussed:
Lack of observation of coaches. Often banks focus their observations on the bankers and less so on the managers, if at all. It essential for banks to be able to evaluate the observation and coaching skills of the manager to ensure that they are effectively coaching.
Lack of behavioral upskilling of Branch Managers. From my experience, many Branch Managers are promoted into the role because they were great at sales and service, not necessarily due to their leadership skills.
Over reliance on anecdotal information. Although managers are observing and coaching, there is a concern on the strong reliance of anecdotal information regarding the quality and effectiveness of coaching sessions.
The over reliance of anecdotal information is a wide-spread issue for banks. Many banks have insight on the frequency of coaching and banker activity, but they have no insight into the quality of the behavior. If there is no insight to the quality of behaviors how can leaders at all levels truly know what needs to be improved?
What is your organization doing to improve and sustain banker behavior?
Involve Executive Management in the delivery of training. In addition to training, there is an increased accountability for bankers to implement the training by having Executive Line Managers help deliver the training. It sends a very clear message that the training is important an implies that there will be a follow up on expectations.
Increase in-person training for behaviors rather than relying on digital training. Several banks have seen a difference in the quality of implementation between digital training and in-person training. In-person training has been more effective.
Make it simple and easy. Remove friction for the banker and customer
What role do your front-line and middle managers play in improving mindset, skill improvement and sustainment of bankers?
The panel felt that front-line managers and middle managers play a vital role in getting bankers to focus on “the why” for their activities.
Strengthen Bankers’ and Managers’ mindsets. Managers need to continually remind bankers that they are in a noble profession. Each day with each customer they can make a difference in the customers lives now and in the future. Managers also hold a position of trust in their communities, and they must be constantly reminded of their influence and impact.
Strong Market Managers are essential. The ability for them to hold their employees accountable through results, deepening relationships and activities has a direct impact on the level of performance.
Visibility, transparency and follow up. Many banks are faced with the issue that the frontline managers use the notes that they gathered from observations to improve the skills and performance of the bankers, but often there is a lack of follow up on the actions and the notes/data is not accessible by the next layer of management. This impacts the frequency and quality of follow up.
Improving Bankers’ Behavior for Sustained Performance is not a new challenge. The industry has been trying to solve this for years. What is needed to finally solve the issue?
1. Observational Coaching focusing on the skill set of the banker and the coaching skills of managers – with much greater frequency and consistency of criteria.
2. Visibility of the quality of banker and manager behaviors up and down the management levels to easily identify areas of improvement, best practices and adherence to compliance- in real time.
SeeEverything provides software solutions to financial institutions to dramatically improve and sustain performance and to solve for many of the problems and opportunities identified within this panel discussion. To learn more, please send me a message.