KATHY D’ARCY
Keeping ‘in touch’
Part One of a Three-Part Series
(Editor’s note: This article is the first installment of a series titled “The Knowledge Vault” that examines the various sources to which banks may turn for ideas, expertise and feedback. The first part of the series looks at focus groups, while the second and third stories will deal with consultants and boards of trustees.)
With the help of focus groups and internal surveys, bank employees have a chance to voice their opinions on company mission statements, work-life programs, policies and corporate issues.
While the typical employee survey focusing on employee opinions of bank services and management issues – offered annually or every couple of years – is still a favorable means of soliciting feedback from bank employees, senior management is taking a new approach by using employees for internal focus groups.
“It is a pretty grassroots approach,” said Eric Heath, vice president of Human Resources at East Boston Savings Bank. “Employees respond well and work well [in the focus group] atmosphere … it is a productive experience and the results are concrete.”
As Heath points out, many internal focus groups are constructed from results of the typical employee survey, often handed out by a third-party source.
Market research firms are a critical part of organizing employee surveys and gathering information for senior management, according to Heath.
“The beauty of outsourcing is that you can be very confident in the confidentiality of the survey itself and that is absolutely critical to any employee,” said Heath, who manages a team of six people in EBSB’s Human Resources Department. “We can effectively look at the lows and highs of the survey and analyze raw data to draw our own conclusion … and acting on those conclusions is the most important thing.”
Third-party market research groups provide a qualitative research method that is ideal for exploring specific topics in depth, according to Michael Chernoff, director of consulting services at Market Street Research in Northampton.
Many third-party focus groups are geared toward banking consumers and not employees, but Chernoff said banks often use outside researchers to gather information based on specific issues brought from employees of the bank.
“The only reason to do research is that you want an independent, objective [viewpoint] from totally indifferent researchers,” said Chernoff. “We don’t have a stake in the outcome from a content standpoint; we just make sure the survey is done appropriately.”
Chernoff describes a typical focus group as consisting of eight to 10 people of similar backgrounds focusing on new products and services that the bank is considering developing. Focus groups are also used to gather input on previously developed products in an effort to gain a better sense of how that product or service is doing.
The idea is to explore the barriers and expectations of the banks, said Chernoff, and those results are used to explore in-depth issues related to why people bank where they do, what they are looking for and what banks have to do to retain and win market share.
An Open Mind
At Citizens Bank, a yearly employee survey addressing everything from benefits and pay to senior management is passed out to employees but, according to Kathy D’Arcy, group executive vice president at Citizens Bank, the crux of employee perspective comes from casual conversation.
“We have an open environment here and anyone can pick up a phone,” said D’Arcy. “Last year, someone in a luncheon brought an issue to Larry Fish’s attention. He brought it to me and I sent a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter with my phone number and e-mail address for follow-up. People know that we encourage feedback … if we ask for advice or opinion, we get it.”
D’Arcy said Citizens uses internal focus groups to make certain senior management is keeping “in touch with what is on [employees’ minds], and what better way to do that than putting 20 people in a room and talking.”
At a bank the size of Citizens, which employs over 14,000 people, D’Arcy said online interactive surveys focusing on specific corporate issues – including voluntary benefits and services, employee environment and available financial services – can be beneficial to senior management and outside service vendors, such as concierge services.
“If we got an [employee] response of 50 percent or greater interested in a specific service, we talk to vendors about those specific services so that we can offer them to our employees next year,” said D’Arcy. “We get a ton of material about what is new in the industry so some of that will generate ‘what do you think?’ surveys to our employees, but most of it is simply people talking to people.”
At a smaller bank like EBSB, which employees 204 people in its branches, internal focus groups are used to draft new mission and vision statements for the bank, and Heath said he “fully expects that senior management looks at recommendations and implements many of the ideas voiced by employees.”
“A lot of policy changes, especially benefit changes, have been because of our size and the ability we have to make a positive change,” said Heath. “Most of it is grassroots – if you hear people being critical of policies and listen, you will find that many of those criticisms are valid and need change.”
Action plans are built from the results of the employee focus groups and presented to senior management of the bank in an effort to effectively communicate the survey results, according to Heath.
“If I don’t have an obvious grasp of the results [from the survey], I would reconvene the focus groups,” said Heath. “We are small enough and the growth is steady, so I still know all the employees and get out to the offices and my hope is that I have a feel for what the results are.”
While the chain of command at larger banks like Citizens can be more complex, D’Arcy said these surveys help management understand internal expectations.
“The main thing with focus groups is that you cannot do it in a vacuum,” said D’Arcy. “You have to listen [to] what employees say and be open to what they say.”
