Reference no: EM134201

CONCLUDING CASE

BEST TRUST BANK

Best Trust Bank appeals accounts from households as well as businesses based on its broad name recognition and reputation for integrity. In this way Best Trust has grown to one of the world's top 25 banks. Its 73,000 employees work at headquarters as well as in facilities located in 47 different countries.

One of those staffs is Paul Wysinsky who in the 1970s took an entry-level job as a bank teller. As he established a track record of satisfying customers, Paul moved up to teller supervisor, working efficiently and cooperating well with others on his team, branch manager and operations manager. He took business courses during the evening, earned a master's degree and worked his way up through middle management positions. Twenty years later he was presented a vice president's job in the human resources division, answerable for recruiting and retaining Best Trust's employees in Houston. Enthusiastic to learn about a new part of the company, Paul tackled the new responsibilities therefore well that when there was an opening for a new executive vice president in charge of corporate human resources, Paul was appointed to run all of HR.

The nature of Paul's work communications altered considerably as he rose through the ranks. When Paul was a teller he observed forward to chatting with his co-workers during breaks their enjoyment of each other's company made the days pass pleasantly. His manager checked in with him regularly to make sure Paul understood his job. His favourite responsibility, though, was greeting customers and listening to them carefully, trying to presumption the unspoken needs that Best Trust might be able to meet. When customers were distressed about a problem, he used to get anxious; but with knowledge, he befitted an expert at listening attentively, assisting the customer find the best possible solution, as well as speaking in a respectful tone that nearly always soothed any frayed nerves.

At the present that Paul is an executive vice president, he hardly talks with Best Trust's customers, as well as more of his communications are structured as well as formal. Though he cares about attracting, motivating and retaining employees in all positions he recognises he cannot possibly have a dialogue with 73000 people in dozens of countries. In fact he can't even have individual conversations with all of the HR employees-Best Trust has more than 800 of them including numerous at each facility.

So, Paul aspects for a variety of ways to communicate. He sees weekly with all the department as well as functional heads involved in formulating strategy. The meeting's agenda comprises reviewing HR issues such as leadership development, diversity management, and succession planning and employee satisfaction. Paul is well ready because he meets at least weekly with each of the managers who report straight to him. In these one-on-one meetings, Paul as well as the manager review progress on the issues handled by that manager. Paul as well uses those meetings to learn what challenges the manager is facing therefore he can offer coaching and encouragement. And Paul looks for means to meet with as many employees outside HR as he can. For instance, he joins an annual employee recognition gathering held to honour the company's 800 top-performing employees. There he talks to as various people as he can. He asks open-ended questions such as "What are you happy about at Best Trust? What could we do better?"

Talking one-on-one to employees be able to feel like an escape from one of the chief annoyances of his job, poorly written messages from numerous of the bank's middle managers. It seems that Best Trust has shined at finding people with strong analytic and customer service skills, however many of these people stumble at presenting an idea or else summarizing their progress in e-mails and reports. Paul feels intense time pressure and if he gets a suggestion however can't figure out the chief idea in the first couple of sentences, he merely passes it to one of his managers for a possible follow-up. Paul suspects that good ideas as well as real problems are being missed. Rambling reports as well as presentations loaded with jargon appear to have become a norm at Best Trust, and Paul is intelligent about adding a new training program to develop writing skills.

To leave the word about the bank's policies, benefits and other initiatives, Paul utilizes a variety of media. He gives presentations at events like as the employee recognition gathering and at branches around the world. Four times a year he records a video that is sent on the bank's intranet. Subjects range from a summary of HR resources to interviews with key leaders at Best Trust. Likewise on the intranet Paul leads regular town hall meetings a live video feed that lets employees to post questions and ideas, which Paul as well as other executives answer immediately on the video.

Promotions to the executive level aren't the solitary reason communication has changed for Paul at Best Trust. Additional source of change is technology. When Paul was a teller the Internet was only a concept and transmitting data online was a major undertaking that necessary computer experts. Now the Internet is an elementary tool. On the plus side, it assists Paul deliver information efficiently as well as keep up with far-flung colleagues. But Paul as well has a whole set of policy concerns related to the Internet, such as whether to permit employees to access social networking sites as well as how closely to monitor blogs and other public information for company-related posts. When Paul considers about it he realizes that his communication skills have hardly grown as fast as the communication demands of his work.

QUESTIONS

How has the media fruitfulness of Paul's communications changed since the days when he was a teller?

What sender as well as receiver skills are described in this case? Which ones require improvement? Suggests one suggestion for improving the weak skills.

How might Paul inherence upward communication and the communication culture more usually at Best Trust?