International School of Management
Employee Satisfaction and Teamwork at Maine Savings
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- Navigate this page:
- Employee Empowerment
- Interaction in the Workplace
- Organizational Culture/Employee Focused
- Employee Benefits
- Employee Motivation
- Chapter 8 Customer Service, Loyalty and Retention at Maine Savings
- Maine Savings as a Customer-Centric Organization
Employee Satisfaction and Teamwork at Maine Savings Maine Savings has made great strides and improved in many of the areas associated with employee satisfaction but arguably, their most notable improvement is in the area of teamwork. Much of this success can be attributed to the facilitation skills and abilities of its Vice President of Human resources & Training, Robert Carmichael. Rob has introduced team building and a team problem solving approach to the employees of the organization. This has proven to instill a sense of camaraderie and team spirit between employees in different departments from around the organization. Those employees who have had the opportunity to work in teams, not only find themselves more motivated to work toward a resolution, but also find satisfaction in working side by side with a co-worker from another part of the company. Maine Savings now uses teams extensively for trouble-shooting, problem resolution, and project planning initiatives. Before the installation of the current management team, team formation within the organization was rare to non-existent. However, in the recent past, team resolution has had a very positive effect on several different areas of the organization. One example in particular, relates to the management of the company’s Visa portfolio. Shortly after the arrival of Anthony Emerson, the Vice President of Finance/Accounting/Operations, who is responsible for the Cards Services Department, he began to notice the high volume of negatively toned e-mails between the supervisor of the department and the branches. With the help of Rob Carmichael and the Card Services Supervisor, Jan Rollins, a cross-functional team including Jan, the A.V.P. of Operations, Rob, and a representative from each branch was convened. It was soon learned that the branches did not understand the compliance issues related to managing the portfolio, and Jan did not realize the magnitude of the customer impact and the issues the branch had to deal with when face-to-face with a customer demanding that their card issue be dealt with. After meeting for three months on a regular basis, the members of the team all had a much better understanding of each other’s concerns, but also came up with some new operating procedures that were helpful to all parties involved. The results of the work of this team have been totally positive! Communication has improved, the branches routinely involve Jan in their decisions and any issues that may arise are quickly dealt with to the satisfaction of all parties. The organization faces many different issues such as product offerings, systems implementation, and compliance issues that have a wholesale effect on many different areas of the company. The standard operating procedure of the company now is to convene a team from the different affected areas so that everyone has an opportunity to give input and feedback on an issue that may affect them and their respective departments. This has recently been done with the following company initiatives: DP conversion, telephone conversion, courtesy pay program, ATM deployment, product implementation, and exam and audit preparation. In each of these cases, the initiatives were implemented successfully and with the support of every department in the company. When an announcement goes out now for volunteers to sit on a cross-functional team, more employees respond than can be accommodated on the team. There is no doubt that the implementation of teamwork at Maine Savings has proven successful in improving employee satisfaction and left team members feeling more empowered as a result of the experience (empowerment will be discussed in the next section of this paper). The company has realized an increased level of employee motivation and productivity as a result of using teamwork on a regular basis. The biggest improvement the company has seen as a result of teamwork has been the increased cooperation between employees in the organization. This cooperation has translated into better working relationships between both employees and departments. A beneficial by-product of teamwork at Maine Savings has been the improved ability by many of the company’s employees to generally work and associate better with other employees. Employee Empowerment In the previous analysis regarding employee empowerment in this paper, it was stated “Empowerment in the workplace is an often misunderstood concept. Employee empowerment is a term that many managers and organizations think they understand, but few actually do, and even fewer really put into practice. Many managers feel that by empowering employees, they relinquish the responsibility to lead and control the organization.” This statement aptly describes the general feeling of Maine Savings management before the installation of its current management team. Prior to the assembly of the organization’s current senior management team, most, if not all, decisions of any significance had to be made by a senior manager. Employees were conditioned not to make decisions and therefore, not to act on anything without the prior consent of someone in management that was duly authorized to make the decision. This created an atmosphere of uncertainty and contributed to a lack of self-assuredness among employees at the organization. Maine Savings current senior management team has reversed this prior belief that all-important decisions should be made by a member of management. In fact, the Senior Staff reinforces their belief that problems should be solved at the lowest possible level of the organization, whenever possible. As was previously stated, from an operational standpoint, the company operates as a flat organization. This means that decisions are made at the level that they occur and not based on a hierarchal structure. By doing this, the company has urged their employees to take more ownership of their duties and responsibilities, as well as encouraged employees to become more entrepreneurial in nature. As this new concept has been permeated all ranks of employees at the company, Maine Savings has seen a marked improvement in employee satisfaction, customer retention, and employee retention alike. As is the case with employees at the Ritz-Carlton organization, the employees at Maine Savings are empowered to solve customer issues whenever appropriate, keeping in mind that there are certain restrictions due to government compliance regulations. That notwithstanding, employees learn as they go, that they are able to reach outside of their paradigm at times in order to facilitate better customer service or solve an issue for a customer. This process is not instantaneous right after the employee is hired, but rather is a process of maturation and learning the appropriate boundaries in which to operate. In addition, employees are encouraged to bounce ideas off of fellow co-workers as a solution, rather than going right to management. Collective reasoning as part of the empowerment process is encouraged, and even rewarded by the Senior Staff of the organization. Management understands the concept of “corporate entrepreneurship” and also understands the necessity to constantly encourage it and reward it. There are many examples of employee empowerment present at Maine Savings. However, a good illustrative example exists in regard to fees. Like any other financial institution, Maine Savings has a very detailed fee structure that applies to things like an overdrawn account to an ACH wire fee. These fees have been established, published, and are applied in the appropriate and relevant circumstances. From time to time though, a Maine Savings employee will refund the fee to the customer because they feel that the circumstances surrounding the fee assessment was not appropriate, or they felt it needed to be reversed for some reason. As long as these situations are appropriate and do not occur on a regular basis, they are encouraged, both from a customer service standpoint, but also an employee empowerment standpoint. As an illustration of past practice, a fee could not be refunded without prior management approval. Today, employees that are working directly with the customer can make the instant decision to reverse the fee. Customers are happy that they are working with an employee that can make decisions and employees are motivated and satisfied because they have been empowered to make decisions. For the past three years, the results of the organization’s employee satisfaction survey indicated that employee empowerment was very important to both employee satisfaction and also employee productivity. The employees indicated that they take pride in their work and would like to have more autonomy in making decisions that effect their department or specific job. In employee appraisal sessions employees voice their support for added decision-making capability. When employees are empowered to make their own decisions, they have a sense of being trusted, which in turn results in more trust of the management of the organization. This has been the result at Maine Savings as well. Employees voice their increased levels of trust in management in appraisal sessions and on the employee satisfaction survey. The feedback from the mid-level managers is also very strong and indicates the increased employee satisfaction level with the growing ability of employees to make empowered decisions. A by-product of actively promoting employee empowerment at the organization is the more efficient use of time by department managers and supervisors. The company has found that the more empowered employees become, the more productive they are and the more proactive they will work. In addition, the managers and supervisors are realizing that they too can be more productive because they do not have to involve themselves in decisions that the front line employees are now empowered to deal with. Effective empowerment means that all parties are winning, the employees, the management, and most important of all, the customers. This is important to note because in customer satisfaction surveys, customers continually voice their desire to deal with an employee that can take care of their issue without having to make them wait for a decision from someone higher up in the company. The Senior Staff has seen a marked improvement in employee development as empowerment has been made a priority. Empowerment has created learning opportunities for many employees that have led them to want to learn more so that they may be better prepared to make similar decisions in the future. Likewise, senior management now promotes empowerment on a regular basis as a source of knowledge and experience. Once in awhile an employee will not make the right decision. When this happens, management understands the importance of using the situation as a training opportunity, rather than a platform for punitive action. Maine Savings Senior Staff teaches managers and supervisors that the quickest way to cease innovation and creativity is to punish it. They know that people will make mistakes, but that should be the time to review the situation and make sure it does not happen again rather than punish an employee that is trying to do the right thing. Interaction in the Workplace An issue that the current management team identified in the first employee satisfaction survey was that an inordinate number of employees felt they were spoken to by members of management in a disrespectful way. There was an overall tone in a couple of departments that management was unapproachable because of the way that they spoke to employees. This feeling was manifesting itself in a distrust of management, as well as lowered employee satisfaction and motivation. Employees gave examples that included offering their input on an issue and then being chided or spoken to in a demeaning manor regarding their input. This kind of behavior by management was eating at the fabric employee trust and morale. When the current management team realized that this was in fact an issue, they took immediate steps to engage employees in productive discussions on the topic and put a stop to the behavior immediately. At Maine Savings today, all employees are spoken to and treated with respect and dignity. Employees are frequently asked for their input and encouraged to give management open and honest feedback, without the fear of retribution. As is the case in any organization, situations do arise where someone speaks to another in less than a respectful manner. When these situations arise, they are dealt with expediently and addressed at the highest levels of the company. It is also understood that everyone is allowed to have a bad day. As long as those bad days do not become consistent and have an adverse effect on the other employees of the organization, there are usually no problems. The Senior Management team at Maine Savings stresses the importance of being empathetic when communicating. An example of the limits management will go to in order to ensure a truly interactive working environment for its employees can be found in the following example: in May of 2005, the A.V.P. of Operations informed Anthony Emerson, the V.P. of Finance/Accounting/Operations, that an employee had called from one of the branches to say that an Operations Clerk had hung up on him. Mr. Emerson subsequently spoke to the Operations Clerk to ascertain what had happened. The clerk informed Mr. Emerson that she indeed hung up on the branch employee because she did not like what he said, although she admitted he was not at all rude. She was told that her behavior was not acceptable and that it was not to occur again. Within approximately 45 days, the same situation occurred again. Mr. Emerson, along with the clerk’s direct supervisor, spoke to her again and this time put her on probation. Less than fourteen days later, the same complaint came from a different branch. When Mr. Emerson was informed of this, he promptly terminated the employment of the clerk and asked her to leave the building. Management stresses the necessity for all employees to interact with one another in a respectful manner, and those that don’t must be prepared to work somewhere else. A different example in regard to empathetic interaction at Maine Savings can be found in the following example: An Accounting Clerk, who had been employed with the organization for eleven years and who had an acceptable performance history began to show up late for work and make excessive errors in her work. After identifying these issues and tracking them for a period of approximately two months, without the behavior changing, the employee was asked to sit down with their direct supervisor to discuss the matter. In the meeting the employee just stated that they had some personal problems and would work to resolve them so that they could improve their work. The employee apologized for their performance and was summarily dismissed back to her work area. Another month went by and her work did not get better; it actually got worse. At this point, Mr. Emerson asked to speak to the employee and her direct supervisor. Initially the employee was reluctant to divulge the real issue, but after being assured by Mr. Emerson that they were all there to solve the problem, she did talk. In her case, her daughter’s day care hours were changed to 8:00 a.m., the time she had to be at work. Therefore, she was always late because she could not drop her child off before eight. This caused her to worry about getting in trouble and led to a degradation in her work quality. As a solution to the problem, Mr. Emerson changed the employee’s work hours to begin at 8:30, instead of the normal 8:00. By doing this, the company was able to address the emotional needs of the employee, while at the same time gaining a satisfied and more productive employee in the process. Because Maine Savings is a retail financial institution, it must maintain certain hours and be accessible to the public at stated times. Because of this, flexibility is not always an option. When it is though, the company will do what it can to address the needs of its employees. Another program that the company offers to address the emotional needs of its employees is a very robust ERP (Employee Response Program). This program provides for 24-hour phone contact for the purposes of crisis management or psychological help of any kind. This benefit is paid for at the company’s expense and is available to all employees upon their hiring at the organization. The service is completely anonymous and the company’s management never knows how many employees are using it, let alone who is using it. The management however, has received feedback from certain employees that this is an invaluable benefit that has been able to address certain employee needs. Whenever there are a great number of people working in one area for many hours at a time, there is bound to be conflict at some point or another. At Maine Savings, these conflicts are addressed and facilitated by Rob Carmichael, the V.P. of Human Resources & Training. Rob is a Certified Facilitator and has dealt with conflict resolution professionally for more than twenty years. If a situation cannot be solved at the lowest possible level between the employees, Rob gets involved and holds a formal conflict resolution session. In this session he addresses the issue, confronts the parties, and finds an equitable and fair solution to the conflict. This procedure has worked for the past three years and has proven to be effective at settling conflict once and for all. Rob will also be called upon from time to time to act as a mediator between parties, whether it is between two staff employees or between a member of management and a staff employee. Sometimes the issue is not even between employees; it may be an interpretation of a procedure that different parties are unable to agree on. Rob is able to bring the parties together and have them effectively come to an agreement on the correct mode of action to take in order to resolve the issue. The Senior Staff at Maine Savings is a proponent of smooth and efficient employee interaction and they go to great lengths to ensure that this is the case. Although the organization communicates as a “flat” organization, boundaries are still observed and respected. Employees are encouraged to interact with one another, but also be mindful of their respective situations and deal with each other respectfully. As part of the company’s ongoing training, interpersonal skills and employee interaction in general, are covered with all employees. Those employees at the supervisory and management levels of the company receive more in-depth training and even mentoring on the subject of employee interaction. Because this topic receives so much attention from the Senior Staff and is publicly addressed frequently, the organization can boast of having and maintaining good interaction between employees. Organizational Culture/Employee Focused Many of the elements that contribute to employee satisfaction at Maine Savings have been discussed previously in this paper. However, none of the elements would be able to exist and work at maximum expectation without a fertile and congenial organizational culture in which to thrive. An abundance of research on this topic has identified the fact that organizational culture is directly linked to service quality and employee performance. It makes no difference if such elements as communication, interaction, training, and service are talked about in an organization unless there exists a culture that allows these elements to be cultivated and nurtured. The Senior Management team at Maine Savings understands this and works tirelessly to ensure that such a culture exists. There are numerous examples, several of which have already been discussed, that show how serious management is about maintaining an organizational culture that allows for maximum employee satisfaction, maximum customer satisfaction, and subsequent organizational profitability. It is not enough to talk about creating an employee culture; it requires actions on behalf of the management team in order to set the example and prove a commitment to the initiative. Some of the challenges that have recently faced the management team at Maine Savings in regard to organizational culture are directly related to the organization’s recent expansion. Two challenging results of this expansion included hiring 25% more employees, and the quick assimilation into the Maine Savings organizational culture. These new employees make up one in every four of the company’s current employee base, and therefore have quite an effect on the attitudes and temperament of the organization. Management addressed these issues by ensuring a comprehensive induction into the organizational culture climate before the employees were assigned to their final work areas. In addition, the new employees were assigned to long-time employees, acting as trainers that could help reinforce the important elements of the company’s culture to the new employees. This has resulted in a very good initial understanding by the newer employees of the kind of culture that exists at the company. The Senior Staff at Maine Savings is keenly aware that an appropriate and conducive culture is the responsibility of an organization’s leaders and results start at the top. The company devotes a great deal of time, energy, and money to the development of its employees, as well as to the promotion of its ideals in order to ensure their workforce is engaged and receptive to the desired culture. The CEO of Maine Savings has stated that it is not enough to focus just on the operational issues of the company alone. Employees must be considered in any operational issue. Employees at Maine Savings are considered an integral part of the machine that powers the company forward, and the culture that is being created takes this into consideration. The Management knows that without good leadership and an appropriate example, a culture that promotes employee satisfaction is realistically unattainable. It is for this reason that leadership by example and constantly putting attention on elements that create the appropriate culture are stressed. Although establishing an organizational culture that is conducive to employee satisfaction is most effective when exhibited by the leadership, it does not mean that employees should not have input into the process. This paper has discussed several of the ways that Maine Savings has been able to effectively collect and implement the ideas of its employees. An important element of creating this culture of satisfaction for the managers of the company is to do what they promise to do. In addition, as with the employee survey, it is important for managers to address issues that are brought to their attention by employees. By doing this, management establishes a sense of trust and commitment from the employees that is an integral part of establishing, maintaining, and growing employee satisfaction. As is the case at Maine Savings, if employees see that management is taking a proactive approach to creating an organizational culture that promotes employee satisfaction, they will be more motivated to contribute and support these endeavors. Maintaining high morale is a key factor in creating an atmosphere of employee satisfaction at most organizations and Maine Savings is no different. Managers are tasked with the responsibility to constantly assess the level of morale that exists in their departments. Low morale can cause many problems that include low productivity, poor customer service, bad attitudes, and a general sense of malaise in the organization. When a situation like this occurs at Maine Savings, it is quickly dealt with, rather than left to “work itself out.” Management at the organization is very proactive in this area and enlists the help of all employees in order to monitor employee morale. Department level management is empowered to rectify any situation that is having an adverse effect on morale and ensure that they do what they can so that the situation will not re-occur in the future. Maine Savings is currently in the process of identifying operational functions that have traditionally needed prior higher-level management in order to accomplish. Management recognizes that in many cases, the organization’s productivity has suffered due to employees having to seek the approval of senior management in order to act. Even though management has been able to identify several areas in which employees can now, through empowerment, act in order to save time and improve customer service, it is proving to be more difficult than first thought. The reason for this is that employees are reluctant to switch from a culture that was controlled by dominant managers that would insist on being notified every time a decision needed to be made. The employees are having a difficult time making these decisions even though they have been told that they are now empowered to do so, knowing that mistakes will be made in the process and current management will not impugn them for doing so. This last example highlights a point that deserves further attention, and is also relevant to the organizational culture at Maine Savings. Establishing an appropriate organizational culture that promotes employee satisfaction is neither an easy process, nor an expedient process, as Maine Savings has learned. Sometimes, it may take years to establish the right culture and have all of the employees understand and buy into it. Just because the senior management of an organization makes a decree of some kind or dictates that this will happen immediately, does not mean that it will happen. Establishing an organizational culture takes time and is something that lasts, whether it is good or bad. When Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, was asked about the most important aspects of the many mergers and buy-outs he led while at the helm of GE, he stated very simply, “the organizational culture considerations.” In Mr. Welch’s opinion, any operations, finances, or other business challenges could be overcome, but organizational culture could not. Citing the few failed takeovers that he was involved with, he specifically said that the initiatives failed because of a clash in organizational culture. These experiences help to highlight not only the importance of establishing the desired organizational culture, but also the fact that organizational cultures can be entrenched and very difficult to change, even with a proactive management team driving the change. At Maine Savings, the initiative to change the organizational culture began more than three years ago. However, management admits today that the desired changes are still in their embryonic stages and will take much more time to solidify and be accepted by all of the employees. Ironically, as Maine Savings has realized, it is the long-time, more experienced employees that are proving to be the impediment to change in many cases. Even though the recommended changes have come as a result of employee feedback and would result in added employee satisfaction, it is proving a daunting task to actually change the behavior of seasoned and experienced employees. An element that is compounding this for Maine Savings is the fact that the tenure for their average employee exceeds more than ten years of experience with the organization. Because the company has very little turnover, and has had since its inception in the early sixties, it has an established, experienced employee base. While this proves to be helpful operationally, it also is proving to be an impediment to change. Before the arrival of Rob Carmichael as the Vice President of Human Resources & Training in 2004, there was no formalized and centralized human resources function within the organization. This made it very hard to consider, as well as act like, a human resource focused organization. The absence of this very important Senior Staff position left Maine Savings without the important structural support for the advocacy of human resources & training functions within the company. With the establishment of this very visible position, coupled with the hiring of such a well-recognized professional in the industry, the organization was able to finally establish the formal distribution of work roles and functions that are a necessary element for establishing the desired organizational culture. Maine Savings has definitely seen an improvement in the satisfaction of its employees, and also continued progress in its goal to make their organizational culture one that promotes added employee satisfaction. The company has made a commitment to constantly improving their organizational culture, but at the same time, management understands the necessity to constantly monitor the situation and be an example of the desired result. The Senior Staff understands the importance of setting the appropriate example for their employees and constantly being the example for what they are striving to attain. The last thing that management wants to be identified with is hypocrisy. Trust is an important element in any corporate initiative, but especially important in establishing an appropriate organizational culture. Although the organization’s management is constantly assessing the progress of this initiative, they understand that this initiative is ongoing and have planned for another twenty-four months until all of the desired results have been attained. Employee Benefits Many of the benefits that Maine Savings offers have been discussed previously in this paper. In this section however, a more comprehensive analysis of the benefits and their corresponding contribution to increased employee satisfaction will be considered. Because Maine Savings is a full-service financial institution located in very heavily banked areas, competition for experienced, quality employees is very high. It is not uncommon for qualified financial institution employees to change institutions every twelve to twenty-four months because of a better offer from a competitor. For this reason, a competitive, robust, and comprehensive employee benefits package is a necessity in order to compete in the employment market place. Maine Savings is recognized by its competitors and prospective employees alike, as having a very good benefits package that is oriented to and for the employees of the organization. Management has continued to offer this kind of robust benefits package even as costs and expenses associated with benefits have continued to rise. A strategic decision has been made by the organization to continue to support the current levels of benefits offered, rather than cut expenses and increase profitability at the expense of employee benefits. The management of Maine Savings understands that lower level employees in particular, may have to sustain an inordinate financial burden while trying to provide themselves and their families with adequate healthcare, for example. In addition to healthcare, there are other benefits such as life insurance, retirement benefits, vacation time, sick time, flextime, and other employee benefits. Each year, management accomplishes a comprehensive review of its benefits package that includes a cost analysis, a competitor analysis, and a content analysis in order to ensure that the organization is providing the most comprehensive benefits possible to its employees, at a reasonable price, and that the benefits exceed those of its competitors. In addition to this review, the company also asks prospective employees about their current benefits packages during the interview process. They also do an exit interview when an employee leaves the company that includes questions about the benefits package. All of this is done in order to effectively understand how the organization’s benefits package is affecting employee satisfaction. The company has been able to differentiate itself from the competition in several different areas regarding employee benefits. The first of which, and probably the most recognizable, is the fact that the company provides healthcare benefits to the employee at no cost. Beyond that, there is a small premium to cover the employee and children and a somewhat higher premium for the employee and their entire family. To point out the magnitude of this benefit, the cost of covering the employee alone is approximately $900 per month. The cost of covering an employee and their family is approximately $1,900 per month, of which Maine Savings pays $1,300, a sizeable benefit by any organizational standard. Many of the organization’s main competitors in the local area have recently increased the employee’s portion of healthcare expense, while at the same time, reducing benefits available to the employees. For instance, there are currently no competitors in the area that pay the entire cost of healthcare benefits for the employee like Maine Savings does. Although this paper made mention of the importance of the organization’s benefits package in a previous section, it bears repeating here. Recently the company needed to hire approximately twenty-five new employees for its two new branches. During the interview process, the prospective candidates all stated that their current organization was in the process of cutting available benefits, while at the same time increasing costs for the employees. They all expressed interests in attaining benefits offered by Maine Savings and could not believe the extent to which management at the organization went to in order to provide affordable and comprehensive benefits to its employees. In almost every case, these candidates expressed their feeling that Maine Savings was their employer of choice in large part because of the benefits package that employees received. For the reasons stated in this, as well as other sections of this paper, Maine Savings management understands that its benefits package is important for employee motivation, retention, and overall satisfaction. The Senior Staff has made a commitment to keep the current benefit offerings available to employees as long as it remains financially viable to do so. As costs rise and insurance companies continue to modify plans and discontinue certain benefits, this commitment is becoming more difficult to uphold. However, the company will continue to devote the time and effort necessary to ensure that the best benefits package possible continues to be offered to its employees. This year (2007) for example, the company’s current medical insurer Aetna, offered a 10% premium increase. Management was able to modify some of the coverages in the plan that would have little or no effect on the employees and realize a cost savings of 1%. This kind of attention and negotiation allows the organization to continue to offer their menu of benefits and not have to increase employee premiums. This is communicated to the employees of Maine Savings and results in increased loyalty, appreciation and overall employee satisfaction. Employee Motivation Motivation is one way of explaining why people behave the way they do in organizations. A person’s motivation can come from intrinsic or extrinsic sources. Intrinsically motivated behaviors are actions performed for their own sake, doing something because it’s believed to be important. “Extrinsically motivated behavior includes actions that are performed to acquire material or social rewards or to avoid punishment; the source of the motivation is the consequences of the behavior” (Daniel and Metcalf 2005). Maine Savings management team strives to promote both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational behavior in its employees. They do this by hiring people that have a level of intrinsic motivation, like a person that enjoys helping customers, and by providing an atmosphere, benefits, and other motivators, in order to promote extrinsic motivation. Because there are many factors associated with both forms of motivation, the management team must take into consideration and constantly monitor such things as personal characteristics, the type of job the employee is being asked to do, the organizational culture, and the organization’s support system. Many of these motivators have been discussed in previous sections. This section will consider more specific ways being used at Maine Savings in order to ensure intrinsic motivation, and at the same time, encourage extrinsic motivation. In general, the Senior Staff at Maine Savings understands that before certain behaviors can be motivated externally, there are basic needs that need to be met first. This line of thinking would mirror the findings and research of Abraham Maslow, commonly referred to as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and whose works and research have been covered previously in this paper. This hierarchy of needs identifies five levels of need that include physiological needs, the lowest, to self-actualization needs, the highest priority. Because of these beliefs and an understanding of Maslow’s theories, Maine Savings management provides benefits that include medical, dental, retirement, flextime schedules, and above average pay that address an employee’s basic physiological needs. As these needs are met, only then can bonuses, raises, and other motivational tools be effective at attaining desired behaviors from employees. By applying this logic to the basic fundamentals of psychological motivation, Maine Savings management has been able to design effective motivation programs that deliver desired results. An example of how Maine Savings used motivation in order to achieve an increase in loans can be found in their NASCAR auto loan program that began in 2006. Before this program was launched, the company averaged approximately $1,000,000 in auto loans per month. The promotion contained certain bonuses and incentives based on volume, that would be paid to the lenders generating the most business (Appendix 14). In the first month of the promotion, auto loan production doubled and continued to increase from that point for the following six months. In one day at the company’s Brewer branch, more than $1,000,000 in auto loans was done as part of the promotion and grand opening of the branch. The promotion surpassed the goals set for the special and resulted in increased employee productivity and exponential motivation because of the incentives and bonuses that were paid as a result of the promotion. Maine Savings management realizes that it is because they have met their employees’ most basic physiological needs that they are able to use added compensation as an effective motivator. Above and beyond using monetary forms of motivation, management strives to maintain a very high level of morale and camaraderie in order to maintain a high level of motivation. The organization does this in many ways including constant informal recognition, buying lunch for the staff, spending time with employees where they work, and by members of management being approachable and available to every employee, no matter what their title or job function is. Employee surveys indicate that management’s methods are working. Especially noteworthy are the comments from long-time employees that indicate a total shift (for the positive) in the levels of motivation that they feel. In almost every case, the employees at Maine Savings say that they feel both challenged and positively motivated. The Senior Staff recognizes this and takes constant, proactive steps to ensure that it stays that way. Chapter 8 Customer Service, Loyalty and Retention at Maine Savings This section of the paper will follow the same format as previous sections and will consider the elements of customer satisfaction that are being addressed at Maine Savings. Each element related to customer satisfaction and loyalty will be comprehensively examined and analyzed through the Maine Savings lens. One of the organization’s main goals has been to become a truly “customer-centric” company. To this end, they have taken many steps and started many new initiatives that will be analyzed here in relation to their customer service strategy. In addition to analyzing the operational endeavors of the organization as they relate to customer service initiatives, many examples will be cited in order highlight certain strategies and methods the company has used. The Senior Staff of the organization understands completely that Maine Savings is a service business that without satisfied and loyal customers would cease to exist. Therefore, customer-centricity is stressed and even mandated by management of the company. Maine Savings as a Customer-Centric Organization Being customer-centric is not only a goal for Maine Savings, but also an actual necessity to continue as a going concern in business. The commidization of money has for all practical purposes, served to make almost all financial institutions generic in most cases. That is to say, money costs or is paid for at a standardized rate that is available at any financial institution. What can make an institution stick out and result in added market share is the degree to which they provide an unforgettable service experience to their customer base. In today’s market, consumers that do not even care about face-to-face customer service can do their banking on the Internet. This used to be a small niche market reserved for the technologically adept. However, today banking via the Internet accounts for a large percentage of all financial transactions. That having been said, there are elements of customer service associated with online banking products, of which most lead right back to a friendly, knowledgeable, and responsive employee. Maine Savings has been able to be the fastest growing institution of its kind in the state of Maine because it recognizes the importance of being a customer-centric organization. Not unlike many businesses today, Maine Savings has had to re-examine the way it does business in every respect. Rather than the traditional method of focusing on profitability and operations first, the organization has examined every one of its processes from the perspective of its customers. Many times, this has resulted in wholesale and costly changes, but met the needs and expectations of the customers that use the service. A good example of this can be found in the organizations weekend hours available at three of its branches. Many competitors are not open on weekends, but a few have half-day hours on Saturday. Maine Savings received a great deal of feedback from their customers that all day Saturday hours were a desire. Recognizing this, as well as responding to the desires of their customers, the organization established all day, full-service hours at three of its centrally located branches. By no means will this be a moneymaking proposition for quite awhile, but the positive response from its customer base has been overwhelming. In the minds of the company’s Senior Staff, being customer-centric means not always making decisions that result in immediate profitability, but rather what is good from the customer’s point of view. It is not enough for an organization to just say they will become customer-centric; they must have a plan that includes funding, a strategy, and a timetable for implementation. One of the first initiatives Maine Savings invested in, as a method of benchmarking and measurement was a service-shopping program. This program uses actual Maine Savings customers to secretly shop each branch and the organization’s electronic services in order to rate different categories related to serving the customer. Such items as reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy are all evaluated using a scale of one to five (Appendix 15). These items are further broken down into customer service elements such as customer name use, product offerings, action, and alternative choice. The company began this initiative in 2005 and took the entire year of 2006 in order to establish a solid baseline from which to measure in the future. The report not only measures performance specific to Maine Savings, but also for geographic peers and national peers. By seeing the peer performance, the organization can seek out best practices if they notice a lagging indicator for any prolonged period of time. Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 1.01 Mb. Share with your friends:
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