The replies we printed last week to the question "What should the role of the branch manager be?" expressed the feeling that since branch personnel know what they are doing, branch managers should be the eyes and ears of the bank, finding out what customers want. These respondents felt the manager should serve as a conduit and publicist to the talent available in the head office.
In contrast, today's replies are from bankers who think the branch manager's greatest worth is as a sort of local CEO, making the same kind of decisions as headquarters leaders but at the level of branch problems.
S. Kyle Waters, regional president of Hibernia National Bank in Baton Rouge, La. wrote: "The best way to use a branch manager is to set up an environment for the manager/entrepreneur to make his or her own decisions and participate in the profits and losses of those decisions. That means a banking company needs to adopt broad policies and let the manager operate within them. Such an environment would include:
"Centralized loan underwriting and approval with local override, which involve giving the manager authority commensurate with his ability, holding the manager responsible for decisions, and establishing boundaries for chargeoffs.
"Responsibility for asset and liability growth, net interest margin, and noninterest income generation and overhead control within the company's expectations. The manager would also have responsibility for the branch's return on assets and return on equity.
"The branch manager would also handle hiring and firing decisions within company policy, supervise customer service, and participate in the profitability of the branch.
"In other words, the branch manager should be the owner of the franchise. He must buy the major products from the franchisor and operate within its policies and procedures. But in the end, the branch manager is the person who owns the local company and all the 'guts and glory' that goes with such ownership."
Kathleen Lewek, a senior consultant at Lewek & Associates of Culver City, Calif., reports that she has had 29 years as a banker, including a stint as branch manager, and three years as a bank consultant.
"The reality is that the branch manager role must fit with the corporate culture and organizational structure of the organization. The banks that are still fun to work for communicate their goals, objectives, and expectations. Further, they actually give their employees the authority needed to accomplish these goals while allowing flexibility in choosing the path to that final destination. However, we may want to change the title to 'branch leader,' because the branch is a team of workers, all of whom are the bank."
And finally, Roy A. Balkus, vice president of Naugatuck (Conn.) Savings Bank, provides a thoughtful response that takes Mr. Waters' and Ms. Lewek's ideas and tells how they should be followed in specific circumstances.
"In today's community bank, there is only one hat the branch manager should wear-that of the president of the branch. That is how the position should be defined and how the manager should function.
"The office must be run as a business unit. The manager is responsible for the net interest margin of the office and the size of the branch. Activity volume and trends need to be measured. Loan and deposit growth are the manager's responsibilities.
"The greatest advantage of a community bank, the one touted by nearly all as the difference between them and the behemoths, is the ability to do business locally-meet the decision makers locally.
"If the manager runs the branch as president, she is empowered to make the decisions that make the branch a success.
"In addition, when the manager functions as the president of the branch, it works as a great training ground, as those successful managers understand all the elements of a profitable branch."
So who wins the presidency of Schmidlap National for a day? Mr. Balkus- but to be honest, all six responses we've published today and last week were so good that we could understand if some of our readers demanded a recount.
