The resignations came as a surprise to Michael O’Rourke, the president and chief executive of Signature Bank in Rosemont, Illinois. But the shock wore off as he dug into the motives of employees who quit.
In exit interviews, the employees said they were leaving for other industries and had nothing negative to say about Signature. “People just needed a change,” O’Rourke said.
The $1.4 billion-asset Signature, which has 92 employees, has been able to refill the positions, he said. It even found a new marketing director, by hiring someone who was leaving a local radio station. But, O’Rourke added, “It’s a little bit like we’re in quicksand.”
Such is the predicament for banks contending with what has been dubbed the Great Resignation, the postpandemic propensity for people to quit their jobs. The so-called quit rate in the U.S. workforce reached a record high in August, when 4.3 million people left their jobs voluntarily, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The figure was just under 3 million in August 2020.
Banking has not avoided the turnover, said Starr Harry, a client success manager at G&A Partners, a Houston firm that takes on administrative human resources functions for other companies. Her clients include banks.
For many people, the stress of working during the pandemic and adjusting to home offices led them to question what they were getting in return, Harry said.
Other people, particularly some front-line employees, remain uncomfortable with face-to-face interactions. Banks have been hiring, but turnover — especially for people hired within the last 18 months — has been relatively high, Harry said. “There’s a lot of recruiting going on, as far as bringing in employees,” she said. “The challenge has been keeping them.”
What worked to attract and keep employees in the past may not work in the years ahead, said several human resources executives at the Best Banks to Work For.
“It’s going to be just as competitive but really for different reasons,” said Mike Lantz, chief people officer at Quontic Bank in New York.
People are looking for companies that align with how they want to live their lives, he said. But it’s not just about letting people work from home. Some jobs can’t be done remotely, and some people want to come into an office.
“It’s about understanding your employees and what they want and making those things available to them,” Lantz said.
More Best Banks coverage:
How this community bank developed a diversity roadmap Leaving the morale-crushing tasks to 'robots' See who tops the Best Banks to Work For ranking
That's exactly how executives at Lakeland Bank in Oak Ridge, New Jersey, are thinking about the challenge.
The most notable increase in turnover at Lakeland has been in entry-level and customer-facing positions, said Thomas Shara, its president and CEO. In exit interviews, those employees said they were leaving for higher compensation, flexible working arrangements, or better opportunities to advance.
The $7.8 billion-asset bank took several steps in response, including offering scheduling that is more flexible. “Early indicators are that this is making the workplace more accommodating to women who have been increasingly pushed out of the workforce as a result of pandemic because of family care responsibilities,” Shara said.
Lakeland also expanded its career advancement program, which has already yielded an increase in internal promotions during the first half of 2021, he said. And it is in the midst of making adjustments to its total compensation packages.
The majority of the Best Banks to Work For — 69% — reported in our survey that they are actually trying to add to their headcount, not just fill vacated positions.
These bank executives generally agreed
“I see that getting even more competitive,” said Brad Greathouse, chief people officer at MVB Financial in Fairmont, West Virginia. The $2.7 billion-asset bank has evolved into a banking-as-a-service provider for gaming, crypto and fintech companies, and the need for talent is one of the considerations that go into its acquisition strategy.
“To build some of that stuff internally takes a lot of time,” Greathouse said.
MVB’s recent acquisitions include Trabian Technology, a software developer, and Flexia Payments, a prepaid card platform for casinos that want to go cashless.
Other recent additions include the fintech compliance company Chartwell Compliance and the fraud-protection company Paladin Group.
Overall, the bank has added 175 employees this year, bringing its staff to about 450, Greathouse said.
Other hard-to-find people include those with specialized mortgage experience, said Lantz, who had been struggling to fill those types of positions at the $1.3 billion-asset Quontic to keep up with loan demand.
Low interest rates spurred growth in lending and hiring at mortgage companies around the country. Signing bonuses and above-market salaries became far more common in the rush to recruit people. “It was a very competitive landscape,” said Lantz, noting that the market appears to be cooling off somewhat.
Quontic offers competitive wages and benefits, Lantz said. But the mostly digital bank — it has just a few brick-and-mortar mortgage lending offices — relies more heavily on its appeal as a place to work in its recruiting efforts.
Remote work and leadership training are part of the pitch. So is innovation. Quontic, for example, offers a bitcoin checking account that lets customers earn a fragment of Bitcoin every time they use their debit cards, Lantz said.
“There’s a type of person who is really interested in being a part of that,” he said.
In-house recruiting teams are another weapon some banks are deploying in the war for talent.
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, b1BANK has been leaning more on in-house experts to recruit hard-to-find, executive-level candidates, said Mimi Singer Lee, the chief human resources officer.
The in-house recruiters can share details more quickly about the bank’s culture than outside search firms, making it easier for prospective employees to get to know b1BANK, Lee said. “We have found that that’s been effective in recruiting candidates who are not necessarily looking for a job.”
Though the $4.3 billion-asset bank, which employs about 655 people, has been able to fill open positions, “we have found that we definitely need to be more intentional on how we do our recruitment,” Lee said.
That includes adjustments at the other end of the spectrum: recruiting on campus. Colleges and universities continue to lean on virtual job fairs rather than the in-person events of the past, requiring extra effort to stand out, Lee said. It’s also harder to get into classrooms due to COVID-19 protocols.
Despite the obstacles, b1Bank has been able to get in front of students through classes on Zoom and other remote technologies, Lee said. “Recruitment isn’t something that is a one-time initiative. It's something that we're doing all the time to let people know who we are.”
Like its peers across financial services, b1BANK also is hiring people beyond its geographic footprint. The bank operates mostly in Louisiana, though it has several branches in the Dallas area. It now has employees in Florida, Mississippi and Nevada.
While the ability to spread out the search area is an aid to recruiting, it also provided a lifeline in the wake of Hurricane Ida.
The storm left bank employees in southern Louisiana without electricity and running water. So employees from other regions rushed in to serve customers, and also to help their colleagues, Lee said. They brought food, gas and other essentials — as well as a reminder of the culture the bank has been building.
“Employees like to know that they're going to be working somewhere where people care about them,” Lee said. “This definitely showed that.”
