Skills For
The Future

Recruiting Talent

Regions’ centralized Talent Acquisition team strives to identify and implement innovative talent solutions that support the building of a diverse, engaged workforce. Our associates are a key element of our success, and we seek to recruit diverse talent who shares our values and mission to make life better. We offer performance-driven individuals a place where they can build a career—a place to expect more opportunities.

Connecting Recruitment and Development

We have developed our Emerging Talent Program as a specific pathway to recruiting top talent. This career development program is designed to refine technical knowledge to fit the current and prospective needs of our business, enhance participants’ individual talents, encourage collaboration and networking, and model Regions’ values. Candidates may enter the Emerging Talent Program through either an internship or a full-time, line-of-business-specific development program. Most full-time development program positions will have a one- to two-year rotational aspect.

In addition to this program, we launched Regions’ Workforce Development Programs to support internships, externships, and fellowships.

Building a Diverse Workforce

Regions is committed to hiring candidates with diverse backgrounds and experience. We make a concentrated effort to attract diverse talent through various recruiting initiatives and collaborative efforts. Our Talent Acquisition team partners closely with our D&I COE to execute our strategies to attract diverse talent to Regions.

The D&I COE works closely with community organizations in our footprint to present job readiness programs, mock interview sessions, and resume-building workshops in an effort to support our community while attracting new talent to Regions.

We are aware of the importance of where we advertise open positions with the Company. We have continued our partnership with Direct Employers to post jobs on diversity-focused job boards to attract minority, female, veteran, differently-abled, and LGBTQ+ talent. The D&I COE also launched a partnership with the Professional Diversity Network job board to increase the number of diversity-focused job boards where we post our open positions. We leverage AI to connect diverse talent to our available positions.

Since 2019, Regions has accepted the HBCU Partnership Challenge, an effort by the Congressional Bipartisan HBCU Caucus to encourage corporations to make greater investments in HBCUs. We have developed an HBCU recruitment strategy focusing on strategic relationships with 10 HBCUs across the Regions footprint.

Regions also works closely with NPHC organizations to attract their membership to our Emerging Talent Programs. For example, we engage with undergraduate students to offer leadership development and demonstrate career paths in banking through our relationship with the Kappa Alpha Psi® Fraternity, Inc. and its national programs, including Lead Kappa and the Undergraduate Leadership Institute.

In the summer of 2019, City of Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin launched Birmingham Promise, an initiative to create new career and college opportunities for students in Birmingham City Schools while simultaneously helping meet the workforce needs of Birmingham’s current and future employers. In addition to providing students with a clear pathway from high school to a rewarding career, the initiative provides more inclusive prosperity in the Birmingham metropolitan area; the resulting diverse, qualified workforce strengthens employers, which in turn helps fuel long-term economic growth.

Regions was proud to be one of 21 companies in the 2019 pilot program, providing one student with valuable on-site experience over the course of that summer. We also welcomed five students in the spring of 2020, but due to the pandemic, the program was postponed; we anticipate hosting ten students in 2021.

In addition to our work with community organizations and educational initiatives, Regions is committed to employing U.S. military veterans and active service members who are seeking opportunities in the financial services industry. Regions has publicly stated our support of these efforts through the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve and has issued a separate statement of support through Military.com. We engage with this group of talent through military-focused career programs, fellowships, and on-base recruiting.

We are equally committed to supporting employment for individuals with disabilities. In 2019, we strengthened our relationships with local departments of rehabilitation by hosting a summer work program and updating our regions.com careers page to affirm our commitment to employing people with disabilities.

Deploying New Recruitment Strategies

We are excited about the investment in and potential for new and innovative initiatives to further enhance our talent recruitment process going forward. In 2020, we invested in technology that allowed us to completely rebuild our external career site, careers.regions.com, offering external candidates a more personalized experience. This investment also allowed us the ability to transform the talent journey through building, engaging with, and tracking talent pipelines.

We developed and launched a formalized Internal Mobility Strategy in 2020 aimed at putting a career roadmap in front of all Regions associates. This builds upon our already strong pipeline of internal talent as evidenced by the fact that more than 45 percent of open requisitions were filled by existing Regions associates in 2020.

Talent Management

Regions’ Talent Management Program strives to optimally deploy talent across Regions by focusing on where associates excel, helping them find the best roles for them at each step of their careers, and building talent pipelines to meet the future demands of our business. Through this Program, Regions employs a consistent, continuous approach to talent identification, assessment, and development. Because we believe talent management should be done well every day to maximize the potential of our human capital, we assist managers in identifying the events and actions throughout the year that are appropriate for performing assessments, engaging in impactful conversations, and providing productive feedback.

The most critical associate development planning event in our talent management process is the career check-in. At all levels of the organization, managers and associates are encouraged, at least annually, to pause and discuss their career goals. Associates, who are expected to drive their career planning, take the first step by completing a guide and setting aside time with their manager to have a discussion. These discussions are unique to each associate-manager pairing, but they provide an opportunity to drive collaborative planning and create commitments to associate development. In 2019, we incorporated automated next-step guidance to managers based on the outcomes of their career check-in conversations.

Engaging in talent discussions throughout the course of a year provides the best opportunity for managers to dive deeply into the most critical pools of talent within the organization. Whether the focus is on emerging talent efforts, diversity, high/low performers, or associates ready to move up or across to another role, each business unit matches its talent discussions to the current and prospective needs of the business. Similarly, succession planning focuses first on the most critical positions with the greatest possibility for turnover and ensures that experienced and capable talent is prepared to assume critical roles as needed. Incorporating plans that attempt to match our best-suited talent for our most critical positions allows us to prioritize resources and effort into generating the greatest return for associates, the organization, and shareholders. Regions also implements a progressive discipline model, emphasizing learning and self-improvement, to address performance gaps within our associate population.

In order to best evaluate and support talent decisions and internal mobility, talent managers routinely assess associate performance, behaviors, competencies, and skills. Associates play their part in the process by regularly updating their career interests, mobility preferences, training, education, and certifications in Regions’ systems. To better assist associates who are interested in exploring internal opportunities as part of managing their careers, we offer virtual career fairs. In 2020, our virtual career fairs offered automated skills- and career-matching technology to recommend exploratory career options to associates.

Preparing for a Changing Work Environment

Automation, cognitive technologies, and the open talent economy are reshaping the future of work. While we recognize the importance of technology to enrich the customer experience, we believe our associates remain our greatest competitive advantage and serve as a resource to our customers that cannot be matched. For these reasons, we continue to invest in associates so that they are empowered with the best skills and tools — including digital technologies — to more efficiently and effectively meet customer needs.

We commit to preparing our workforce for a rapidly changing environment and understand that reskilling and upskilling are crucial to staying competitive and to retaining valued associates. To support this need, Regions established a new learning ecosystem Regions Edge—a customized learning experience platform that provides the tools to measure, build, and communicate skills inside the organization. This tool is designed to empower associates to drive their careers through associate-led personalization of learning plans based on their roles and interests. Regions Edge provides a wide variety of learning experiences: articles, podcasts, online training, online coursework, and peer-to-peer interactions that create an inclusive, robust learning experience. Currently, Regions Edge is available to approximately 11,000 associates, with plans to expand access to all associates in 2022.

Organizationally, Regions Edge provides the ability to inventory associates’ skills and target development efforts toward specific areas where elevated skills are needed now and in the future. Regions leverages a combination of internally developed learning assets focused on Regions-specific content along with content developed and curated by key subject-matter experts throughout the organization.

Additionally, strategic relationships with training vendors such as LinkedIn Learning and Harvard ManageMentor® offer more than 12,000 learning opportunities across a wide variety of subjects. In recognizing the importance of technology, we engaged Pluralsight and other specialized technology training vendors to provide more than 6,000 on-demand courses that offer intensive learning in application development, IT operations, information security, and technology architecture.

Assessing Skills for Future Business Needs

In late 2019, we embarked on an initiative to identify the future skills required to effectively execute on our business strategy and develop the learning pathways necessary to upskill associates. Our approach to accomplish these goals uses the following process:

• Accurately projecting the knowledge and skills we need to develop as an organization.
• Using analysis to align individual associates with the knowledge and skills that they need to be successful.
• Prescribing learning content for associates that targets their individual needs based on skills assessments.
• Monitoring progress and creating accountability at all levels for achieving capability milestones.

The first upskilling initiative was launched with our IT team. We began by identifying and defining the current and future knowledge, skill, and needs of more than 700 associates. As a result, nearly 150 customized learning plans were created to upskill these associates. “It’s Training Tuesday!” is being endorsed by IT leadership to establish the expectation that associates spend at least 30 minutes learning every Tuesday. The upskilling initiative will continue to expand to other functional areas in 2021 and beyond.

In addition to ensuring that we are appropriately preparing for future business needs, performing the work of assessing current skills and implementing upskilling and reskilling programs will better position us to avoid costly hiring initiatives, reductions in force, and position eliminations. Where upskilling or reskilling may not be an option, Regions utilizes a formal process for reviewing plans for reductions in force and position eliminations. This procedure requires a business justification for the reduction or elimination and review by multiple departments. Regions also offers a severance program for impacted associates.

Continuing to Value Instructor-Led Learning

The Regions Learning and Development team continues to offer high-value, instructor-led learning experiences that incorporate relevant scenarios in order to practice desired behaviors to meet customer needs. By using an adaptive approach to learning that is aligned with the Company’s corporate strategies, we can meet current learning and development objectives while anticipating business skills needed in the future. In particular, we invest in critical positions such as application development, emerging talent, business analysts, fraud prevention, diversity, equity and inclusion, and strengths-based development.

During 2020, we used a progression curriculum in our branch network that aligns learning with career paths and advancement through five levels of a single job family. The learning experience is provided online through virtual instructor-led courses and made more relevant by manager reinforcement and practice in experiential opportunities that assess skills development progress.

Leading the Regions Way

Regions’ leaders are expected to deliver performance outcomes through a strengths-based, engagement-focused, performance-oriented, and inclusive approach to managing talent. We believe these four management principles can inspire true performance growth for associates, teams, and the Company. Leading the Regions Way is a leader and manager development program created to help people managers understand how to evaluate performance by leveraging these principles.

New tools and resources were created to support leaders throughout 2020, including virtual instructor-led and online trainings, podcasts, learning pathways, and toolkits—all designed to reinforce Regions’ Leadership Model and account for the new challenges leaders face. The curriculum encourages a balance of the roles of leadership—leader, manager, and coach—in the new virtual environment.

Building the Best Bankers

The Build the Best Banker program is a series of learning solutions that prepares bankers to help customers make better financial decisions through consistent advice, guidance, and education. The series includes training on Regions’ digital capabilities, which is imperative given consumers’ increasing engagement in technology-driven transactions. We believe teaching our bankers to use technology well enhances the value of a personal, trusted relationship between the customer and banker. The Build the Best Banker learning journey equips bankers to meet customer needs, both today and in the future.

College and University Relationships

We work with colleges and universities to provide associates with additional learning and educational opportunities specific to their roles. These include:

• Vanderbilt University
  Through this executive development training program, Corporate Banking segment leaders participated in a six-part series focused on how to conduct high-quality coaching in the virtual environment.
• Harvard ManageMentor
  All associates are provided with access to ManageMentor, a premier on-demand learning and performance resource for leadership and management skill development.

In addition to direct third-party programs, Regions maintains a tuition reimbursement program. All associates are eligible for up to $5,000 each year in reimbursement for business-related undergraduate degree courses. In 2020, associates were reimbursed approximately $327,000.