American Banker Magazine September 2017

The 75 banks that earned a spot on our fifth annual ranking of the Best Banks to Work For could inspire you with their ideas for creating a culture of both positivity and high performance.

A few years after co-founding Level One Bank, CEO Patrick Fehring decided to survey his employees. It turned into a wake-up call.

Acquisitions are disruptive by nature, but some banks excel at maximizing M&A value by minimizing friction. Here’s what the active acquirers among our Best Banks to Work For know that others might not.

Safety first, counseling and maybe massages later. For most banks, the goal after a robbery is to restore normalcy. But how they go about it varies, from requiring employees to return to the scene to enlisting colleagues who have had a similar experience to provide support.

Given that an estimated 44 million Americans graduate with student loans, offering a repayment benefit could be worthwhile for banks trying to recruit millennial employees.

The Detroit lender developed rotational training programs in auto finance, accounting and technology to help attract and keep promising employees, especially millennials, who had a tendency to bolt.

Here’s a community bank that is growing goodwill with local residents — literally. The staff at an Independence Bank branch in Hopkins County, Ky., tends an acre of farmland before and after work, with their crops going to help feed the needy.

United Community Bank of West Kentucky took the harrowing experience of one of its employees as an opportunity to improve the benefits it offers.

The new owner of this Miami bank might be from Chile, but it sure knew how to create warm feelings with the employees it acquired. Instead of cutting back on benefits, it added some new ones — including a cash bonus paid for life events like having a child.

The days of having an employee who happily works at the drive-through window for 30 years are over. So what’s a bank to do about its branch staff now? Bank of Tennessee has some ideas that it expects will appeal to millennials.

An episode of "Oprah" changed how this North Dakota bank thinks about corporate giving. But the way it distributes donations is not the only thing that sets it apart. Call Michael Solberg crazy if you want, but he says the results validate Bell's philosophy of generosity.

Culture is key at Washington Trust, as it is at many of the 75 banks in our Best Banks to Work For rankings. Having a custom word to describe its community-oriented philosophy helps fuel conversations about it, and letting employees personalize the meaning (no scripts here) fuels a sense of empowerment and enthusiasm.

Want employees to feel empowered to make decisions to help customers? Rewarding that behavior is one way to reinforce the message. Here’s how one South Dakota community bank goes about it — in a splashy, Super Bowl-sized way.

With immigration and racial issues flaring across the country, a community bank owned by two families with opposing political views is undivided in helping noncitizens obtain work visas and prioritizing diversity in some very homogenous markets.

Life is “ruff.” Pets can make it easier. Here is how some of the Best Banks to Work For accommodate their employees’ furry pals.