Make Culture Matter

Building the best team – by recruiting, retaining and developing the most capable professionals in the financial services industry – is a core strategic priority at Regions.

We recognize that a strong culture is fundamental to achieving our financial and operational goals, and to creating shared value that benefits all our stakeholders. Today we are finding new ways to make a strong culture even stronger – progress that is evident by the Gallup Organization’s selection of Regions as one of the Top 40 Places to Work in 2015.

Strengthening associate engagement is the work of every leader at every level at Regions, and no one is more successful at that responsibility than Amanda DeGreen, senior vice president and loan operations manager. Amanda and her five department managers lead a team of nearly 300 associates responsible for closing, processing and servicing of loans – consumer, business banking and commercial – as well as credit card operations and relationship awards. Metrics indicate that associate engagement in the department is exceptionally high. A strong commitment to training and development, and to empowering each associate to fulfill their potential, is a big reason for the team’s success.

Amanda began her Regions career 14 years ago as a data entry clerk in consumer collections and progressed through increasingly responsible positions in bank operations. When she began her current role she found that the department was operating effectively, but there was more that could be done to elevate engagement. “The first thing I did was to meet with people in every area to talk about what could be better. The common thing I heard over and over again was, ‘I want to do more than I’m doing today but I don’t know how to get there.’ There were a number of people that wanted to stretch and grow and achieve their career goals. It was a good, solid operations department with good quality metrics, but it was clear that a stronger focus on associate development was needed,” Amanda recalls.

Amanda and her department managers mapped out a plan to improve development opportunities at every level. Monthly meetings of managers, and quarterly meetings of managers and supervisors, were initiated to focus on engagement and career development. “As a leadership team, the first question we asked ourselves was: What would help us grow? And once we have a handle on that, the next step is to ask What would help our associates grow?” Development programs for the leadership team began with presentations from internal Regions experts, including the bank’s chief economist and a finance team leader, to gain a more holistic understanding of the entire enterprise and its priorities. Department leaders also visited area companies and nonprofit organizations to learn how they tackled operations challenges and to gather insights on best practices they could implement in their own department.

Amanda and her leaders next turned their sights on strategies to better develop and engage front-line associates. They placed a major emphasis on enhancing emotional intelligence through training programs that, over the course of nine months, reached every manager, supervisor and associate. The goal? A more collaborative, team-oriented culture.

Regions’ enterprise operations division established two new initiatives to create a clear career pathway for associates who seek more responsibility. In the BOLD program – Bank Operations Leadership Development, which is administered by two of Amanda’s managers – 10 associates from bank operations are selected each year for a comprehensive leadership development program. The second initiative is targeted to loan operations associates who seek advancement. Initiated in 2015, ELITE: Equipping Leaders through Instruction, Teambuilding and Empowerment, includes online and personal training courses in key skills such as written communication. Engagement has also been enhanced through value chain exercises, to provide associates a better understanding of how their work intersects with that of other departments, as well as through an ongoing mentorship program.

Passion is the essential ingredient that elevates performance from good to great, and Amanda credits her managers, who collectively possess decades of bank operations experience, for driving passion in her department. “You’re always going to catch them doing the right thing. They create a culture of caring. They have an extreme commitment to quality. They’re passionate about their jobs, and they’re passionate about providing support, guidance and opportunity to the associates they lead.”