Sales, banking, people and motivation Essays

Sales, banking, people and motivation Essays Sales, banking, people and motivation Essay Sales, banking, people and motivation Essay Allied Banking Corporation has been operating as a commercial bank for over thirty years increasing its number of branches in the Philippines to over 283 sites and a lot of other international representative units strategically place globally. (Alliedbank 2005). The following areas of concern were noted during the study and research of the organization: a.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Technology and globalization. The website of the bank alliedbank.com.ph lacks online chat mode for online inquiries that needs immediate attention. Foreign rates are not updated early first thing in the morning. I used their emailing system for a simple ABA number inquiry of their correspondent bank in U.S.A. and I was not given the correct answer, instead I was asked to make a search in their correspondent bank’s website. It was a simple inquiry and yet their customer service representative cannot supply a handy answer. Basic things they should know when they are out there in the field. Online banking is powered by Bancnet online with a fund transfer mode facility that does not function even for same bank local transactions. There is no president’s message in their president’s message page. I used the email provided for the president’s message and I was wondering if it has a link since it does not have a pop up window. Anyway I sent an email to the email address that was given and until now there was no reply received from the president nor did I receive any auto email responder. The online banking page does not have an online application form for opening of new accounts where clients can manage filling up the new accounts form first then go to their desired branches for the presentation of needed requirements and signature. Compared with HSBC website, page for forms and documents can be downloaded at hsbc.com.ph/ph/forms/forms.htm, HSBC I think has more of an edge to customer service and global banking. There is no toll free phone service number provided for phone call queries. An organization as global as Allied Bank managing without the recent technology to enhance full-bloom customer service relationship management system. I wonder if one loses his AT card in the middle of the night can sue the bank for failure to provide the facilities to call without paying in case of loses if at that time he does no t have any funds to make a paid call to the Head Office regular hotline number and nobody in the nearby branches is awake to make the hold out card transaction. b.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Customer service experience and motivation. There is an apparent lack of call center service representation and the technology to support and sustain bank activities. Bank employee’s motivation via technology utilization and improvement may be provided by an online banking tool which may grab and hold onto customers for life which is supposedly shall be the heart of any bank’s long term strategy. The heart is missing now, there are only people moving but with total lack of motivation and enthusiasm, adept knowledge of bank products and power leadership drives to destination unknown for a decentralize area of authority. c.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Cross selling and motivation. Cross selling bank’s affiliate companies products is a good form of interchanging efforts to enhance incorporator’s investments. If we take a look to the way it was implemented, we can see that a good part of the look out and selling process of the New York Life (NYL) insurance products has been placed on the shoulders of the bank’s Branch Heads (BH) and down to the shoulders of the staff. In my research there is only the presence of push and figures for sales quota. There was an absence of monitoring and analysis to effective sales communication process between bankers and customers in terms of planning and follow up system. The NYL organization absolutely runs from the structure of the bank which may be the initial plan but failed to distinguish corporate mission statement and goals of the bank which are selling their basic products. NYL people were only there to present and close sale but follow ups and look out for prospective market were the burden of the BHs. Mabuhay Miles could be a free promo product from Philippines Airlines which is also their sister company, but their coordinator and software failed to give specific reports of a list of those who were enrolled at their depository branch alphabetically. So the new accounts representative has to make a search for the number or name of the depositor first before enrolling. Management has given strict policy of recruiting to accounts that were two years old and over but there was no provision in the software of Allied Bank to easily access deposit accounts with their corresponding ages. How do you think employees who were given the quota will manage to enlist depositors and feel about how things work and run in the organization? d.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Work conditions and overtime payments. Cost cutting and soliciting bank employees motivation is not well compensated when air conditioning were being replaced by electric fans to save on electricity. Imagine the smell and the heat of a work environment as such as an airtight closed room to elaborate without proper ventilation and air conditioning. There is a predetermined air conditioning operating hours. Even if we allow one unit to run it still cannot accommodate to cool the entire branch where people are still working. The worst that is happening is the slashing of the number of hours worked beyond regular hours, overtime by the employee. Remember being away from your family for so long a time even extending to late evenings and getting paid for only a percentage of the work done. A very good motivation and behavior reinforcers scheme to develop a rebelling stubborn employee. e.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Product knowledge and training. Most of the time the bank offers products and services with no training and orientation made on product knowledge. Only memos were given. And if they hold trainings, employees are not being paid for the attendance. It is already a fact with the organization that if they hold half day seminars in Cebu province in particular, it usually ends at about 2-3pm with no provisions for lunches or meals. Only light snacks were given. Employees do not want to attend seminars anymore because of the effects on their health. Imagine listening to your upper level management speeches in pangs of hunger if it won’t drive you to the doors of the doctors for illnesses of hyperacidity and ulcers. f.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Duties and responsibilities vs. delegation of functions. Tellers and new accounts were given a lot of delegated responsibilities by supervisors and officers. They cannot do anything about it because of the provision of HRD in their list of duties and responsibilities captioned as â€Å"and all other duties and responsibilities assigned by the branch†. The context of their functions is not really performing their relative functions but extended to the functions of the officers as well. This gives an idea of opportunity to enjoy for some Branch Operation Officers the task of reading newspapers almost the entire day, making telephone conversations, signing documents and making follow ups on delegated functions. Nice pay good work! This in fact curtails the voice of the employee to cite abuse. g.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Branch assignments and job rotations and motivations. The present transfers of branch assignments and job rotations without the agreement of the employee concern. 2005 memorandum states that the maximum number of years they are allowed to stay in a branch is five years only. Everything is based on instructions and management prerogative to transfer employees, nothing on how employee feels on the new workload and how they react on the proximity of their new branch assignments from home. Travel and stress make the most part of their time going to work from north to south. How about the consideration of skills and building up of rapport with customer service? How can HRD disregard familiarization and period of adjustments, qualification, satisfaction, and employee morale? Organization change analysis and proposal Consultative banking described the roles of bankers as consultant to their customers maximizing recognized opportunities by discussing alternatives and assisting them in their decision making phase with utmost confidence. This kind of approach to sales requires bankers to look at their products and services from their customer’s point of view making it as relevant as an increase in market share profitability and development of long term relationship in a highly competitive industry. The focal point of selling then is to understand the needs of the customers with total annihilation of the concept of door to door selling. The link therefore is increasing the employee’s ability to uncover needs, solve problems and improve situations of the customers to a mutually beneficial relationship. (Richardson 1984). The approach therefore is building relationships which are a great contrast to the issues I have cited in branch transfers and job rotations. Building relationship requi res time and it won’t benefit the bank if in the time that you almost get to know the customer you will be transferred to another branch. In their drive for a Know Your Client (KYC) directive, they forgot that time encompasses such development. Employees also experience low morale and great stress in accepting responsibilities against their will. Real motivation stems from good leadership and follows the guidelines set by nature. Motivations as emotions have unconsciously set its place in the day-to-day operations of the bank. (Maddock Fulton 1998). The prevalence and expression of emotions at work were certainly overlooked by management. Where emotions and rationality complement each other, it shall be used in a constructive manner to energize people by getting them cognitively and affectively engaged in their individual work. Efforts and expectations do not address the heart of an individual. It only deals with his hand and of his head. â€Å"Leaders may persuade with log ic, but they motivate through emotion. Leaders must come to grips with the challenges of emotion, a key driver of productivity, quality and other factors that lead to business success. When you want to motivate people to take action, engage their emotions.† (Ashforth 1995). This explains well how the idea of branch assignments and transfers may be detrimental to the health of the organization. It leaves customers and does not make it possible for the bank to strengthen the portfolio of banking products as part of their core banking solution to establish global customer base. It is a simple hello and goodbye interface making it more visible for the customers to opt whether to increase or decrease their business with the bank. Moreover the continuing dissatisfaction of the employees of having to invest additional time and effort in going to work were exhibited by getting up earlier than usual in the morning to make allowances for travel time and coming in late at home as late as 8-9pm because of travel time and annoying traffic congestion. They don’t even have the appropriate quality time spent to take care of their family and kids because of the very early and very late schedule to get out and come back to home base. Proximity from home to work sh all be a major consideration by HRD when they plan to release schedules for transfers and branch assignments. They should hear the dilemma of stress and anxiety brought by too long travel time and getting to develop a stranger relationship with one’s immediate family. This is surmounted by the deal of adjustments an employee has to undertake on different work stations. Authority could be a well demeaning word when it comes to violations of the rights of the employees to express their sentiments about the present trend of movements. HRD shall get the confirmation of the employee first to know if they are happy in following instructions without their consensus. Emotions play a good deal with employee’s motivations and dissatisfaction that may lead to rebellion and absenteeism due to decline and lack of dedication and enthusiasm to perform work. Order must be made with regards to the order in branch assignments and order with regards to personal family lives of the concer ned employees. Cost cutting of air conditioning electricity and slashing of number of hours rendered for overtime are unjust and humiliating. For all the income the bank has generated, the bank wants to give its employees fair pay to fair labor. Management must implement change of behavior on themselves for these so called unjust practices. This is not a Christian way of treating one’s workforce. Instead management shall look into giving meal allowances for employees who stayed to work until or past dinner time be it 6:30pm or 7pm. Control factors for anticipated excessive overtime shall be made upon submission of application by simply saying yes or no after evaluation of the work that needs to be done. Work is facilitated and employee is more motivated if work conditions are satisfactory. Management shall in no condition limit air space circulation and cooling when somebody is still at work. Management shall create a group to determine and identify loopholes in operations and leadership. It shall serve to identify changes in behaviors of employees and the motivation factors that needs to encourage work and build a strong workforce to gain a competitive edge over other banks. Surveys shall be made and distributed to all employees. Performance appraisals must not be limited to and subjected to appraise staff alone. Another form of appraisal shall be created to gauge performance of officers also. Praise and working conditions are two motivating factors that will decide employee’s enthusiasm to excel work performance. The bank may infuse on their management intervention the use of motivating language to impart effective communication on employee performance and enhance critical employee attitude. (Mayfield Mayfield 2006). In order to stimulate employee motivation, BH shall clarify goals for subordinates to eradicate uncertainties in the process. He must be able to give everyone his role in making sales. Like if a new accounts clerk has to open a minimum of two accounts per day, then he must understand to figure out to make one more sale the day after tomorrow if he only opened one account the next day. Empathy is very important when speaking to subordinates with emotional understanding. This is critical when it comes to issues of cross selling products. BH shall understand that it is not banking anymore but pure cross selling by which the selling process shall be done only upon completion of basic banking duties and responsibilities. A matter of factual disorientation will occur as to which one t o prioritize between the employer’s products or the affiliate companies products. Pressure shall not be downloaded to the wrong workforce. Cross selling shall be done only as an extension of the bank’s sales and services. There is a big difference on the two and very big impact on employee’s attitude towards work. It may be apparent that employees do not value working on extended services when their own duties and responsibilities with additional delegated tasks are already covering their work hours. The bank shall have a look with their reengineering, workload, and cross selling features that has been pressuring officers and staff to achieve branch quota. Technology is vital to global connectivity to sustain operations and create an edge to customer satisfaction and experience. The toll free number, call center aspect, and the website are extensions of the branch operating hours. In the issues of technology and globalization, the website will serve to generate its own advantages. Some channels like ATM machines have greatly helped to free-up-front bank sales staff from transactional activities but banks needed to trust new capabilities in order to increase their share of the customer wallet. It is finding the right product and the right relationship with the perfect technology. Employees must be given the proper training and of course the proper incentives to attend seminars and training in the issues of product knowledge and training. It will be their only mode of distinguishing leads to prioritize, creating sales scripts, and fulfilling sales. Although a lot depends on the execution, getting the human sales force to full advantage r emains to be a challenge for the bank that have been placing budget constraints in all the wrong places. Managers must learn to acknowledge worker’s performance and take feedbacks. A straight forward in depth communication could be the cure to lift their morale. Employees shall be informed of whatever is happening in the bank and not being discriminated for any regular news item other than for memos and instructions. Managers shall take the initiative to make them feel at home with the bank and not alienated to enhance team’s capability to perform effectively in the future. Group performance relates to group composition taking into account the nature and attributes of each member. It deals with heterogeneity and creativity as it considers familiarity and performance of team building. (Dickinson Guzzo 1996). To provide the right customer experience, the bank has to provide the right employee experience. It is a chain. It will spread once it gets motivated. Motivation i s not always in the form of reward systems although it can affect desires but it has more to do with emotions, relationships, and leadership. The bank has already reached its peak of performance, if it won’t seek to change its present situation, it will likely slide down.