By Tam Harbert

Any random survey of any community will find a range of different technology aptitudes and levels of interests among local residents, from the iPad 2-toting woman with every mobile app available to the guy who still refuses to use email. As a group, these differences are likely to be no different among your community bank’s employees. Some will easily and eagerly use technology to its fullest while others could be downright indifferent to anything computerized.

Unlike within the broader community, however, these different mindsets toward technology can have a big impact on your community bank. How employees view and interact with technology can shape your bank’s public image as a technology-smart institution, but mindsets also can determine how well banks use the technology they have.

While estimates vary, most industry technology vendors and researchers agree that banks use less than 40 percent of the capabilities from their core systems. Part of the problem is resistance from employees and lack of effective training on how to use the systems. “It is so critical that our employees understand our technology,” says Peter Graves, CIO of Independent Bank Corp. in Ionia, Mich., a community bank with $2.5 billion in assets and more than 100 locations. “But it’s a challenge because we have about 1,200 employees spread over more than 100 locations.”

Missed opportunities

Not fully exploiting existing technology, or not selecting the most appropriate technology, can affect customer service, employee productivity, how widely customers adopt new products and services, and, ultimately, the overall bottom line. Take the example of data mining and business intelligence software. These systems can tell bank marketers, and sometimes front-line tellers, which new products might be of interest to particular customers, based on their transaction habits, incomes or life stage.

But if employees don’t know how to use, or aren’t interested in using, all of the software’s functions, the bank’s efforts to fit customers with the most appropriate products and services could be hindered considerably. Too many bank presidents view their core processing systems strictly as a way to automate accounting, rather than understanding how technology can be used to enhance the customer relationship, says M. Arthur Gillis, president of Computer Based Solutions Inc., a technology consulting firm for community banks in Dallas.

But how can community banks promote and maintain a tech-savvy culture and workforce, from the front-line teller counters to the executive suites and boardroom? Although there are no magic bullets, some well-accepted tenets of the technology faithful can increase the chances that any community bank’s workforce will make the most of the systems it has to offer, according to community bankers, consultants and technology vendors.

First, community bank management should lead by setting the example of embracing technology and the possibilities and continual relearning that it entails, technology experts and providers suggest. Without ongoing training, employees won’t learn to use the technology to be more productive nor will the bank learn how to implement useful additional features. Overcoming this hurdle requires staff motivation and awareness of technology.

Training tips

There are different ways to approach training on internal systems that properly motivate management and staff on technology, technology vendors and consultants say. One approach is top-down: Management requires employees to go through a training program and achieve a certain level of proficiency, which is measured and used as part of the person’s performance evaluation. Another training approach, however, can be motivating manager and employees from the bottom up. This bottom-up approach results from a combination of management setting clear strategic goals as well as listening to feedback from employees.

Employees may resist technology changes or education when they don’t understand why they are being forced to change the way they do their jobs, suggests Louis Hernandez Jr., CEO and chairman of core processing vendor Open Solutions Inc. in Glastonbury, Conn. Community banks are likely to get better results if they can show employees how the technology will make their jobs easier and enable them to serve customers better. However, part of any community bank’s technology training should make the connection between the technology, the bank’s strategic goals and its employee’s job performance goals, Hernandez adds. For example, employees are likely to be familiar with their community bank’s goals, such as growing market share or increasing profits.

But explaining how a new system can enable employees to increase their cross-sell numbers—which would not only help the bank but potentially also earn its employees more bonuses—is even more effective, Hernandez says. “If you take the time to explain that—which a shocking number of banks don’t—usually people want to be successful.”

However, part of effective technology training across any organization is also recognizing where a technology is useful and where using it becomes overkill, cautions Mike Lehr, a human resources and sales consultant at Young & Associates Inc. in Kent, Ohio. “You need to figure out a baseline of technology knowledge,” he says. “What is it that everyone needs to understand about this software? And train everyone on that.”

Employees can chafe when forced to use technology they feel impedes their productivity because the technology was not fine-tuned to their particular process. Gillis suggests that management simply talk with employees about how the technology will improve their ability to perform. “You don’t have to hire consultants,” he says. “Just talk to your first-line employees. Ask them what prevents them from doing a better job.”

Then investigate whether there are ways to tweak the technology, Gillis adds. There are often capabilities in your community bank’s software that employees aren’t aware of or don’t know how to use. While the vendor should be able to help, it will not understand an individual community bank’s specific processes. Even the bank’s IT manager or CIO may not be attuned to exactly everything end-user employees might need from the technology, Lehr says. In such a case, what might be needed is a technology evangelist or a “power user” at the bank who can bridge the gap between knowledge of the technology and knowledge of how people do their jobs, he says. “Such a person can guide employees in how to use the technology most productively.”

Of course, such targeted personal technology training for an individual employee isn’t always possible, especially when budgets are tight and staffs are dispersed. That’s where online training can help. Independent Bank in Michigan uses an online learning management system to provide compliance and other types of training, and it also uses a Web-conferencing service that allows employees to participate in webinars and training sessions, share documents and work together to solve problems.

However the training is delivered, it needs to be repeated and reinforced to be effective, says Graves, of Independent Bank. “It’s not just a one-time deal,” he says. “You can’t just send out some screen shots and some instructions in an email, clap your hands and say, ‘Well, that’s done—we’ve trained everybody.’”

Tam Harbert is a financial writer in Rockville, Md.