Workplace culture

Under fire for saying that the potential pool of talent is "limited," CEO Charlie Scharf issued a memo to employees Wednesday acknowledging that his words reflected his own "unconscious bias" and vowing to improve diversity in the bank's leadership.

With staff scattered between working at home and in the office, management at many institutions has taken steps to revamp intranets and launch employee-only Facebook groups to keep their workforce connected.

More than a dozen institutions made the ranking this year in this asset category range.

Sergio Ermotti joined JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon in expressing concern about the long-term consequences of remote work.

The annual ranking, a collaboration between Credit Union Journal and the Best Companies Group, involves surveying employees and reviewing each institution's workplace policies.

The new order is the strongest move yet by a U.S. bank to require employees to return to the workplace.

A report from the trade group, released Tuesday, follows a June resolution from its board of directors recognizing historic, systemic and institutional racism in the U.S.

Some institutions have long worked to recruit a diverse workforce and address discrimination but these initiatives have taken on greater importance as protests have highlighted racial inequality.

Recruiting directors from a variety of backgrounds is a challenge familiar to many credit unions. A member of one of the nation's largest CUs is calling for that institution to address the problem.

Sells, American Banker’s Digital Banker of the Year, explains how he encouraged his team to take risks on projects like a three-minute account opening process and a system that analyzes core data in real time to help set deposit prices.

As protesters continue to take to the streets to express outrage over racial injustice and inequality, banks — for the first time — will commemorate the date that marks the end of slavery in the U.S.

Some of the industry’s biggest institutions intend to keep a significant portion of their staff working from home indefinitely. That’s raising new questions about organizational cultures and how to appropriately utilize credit union facilities.

Many of the cultural changes instituted by Hisham Salama, one of American Banker’s 2020 digital bankers of the year, have led to a more agile tech team and higher customer satisfaction scores.

The regulator has formed the Culture, Diversity and Inclusion Council, which will conduct a survey of NCUA's culture to identify areas that need improvement.

In a still male-dominated industry, does the network help attract and keep more women at the firm? CEO Shirl Penney says yes and has the results to prove it.

Employees want to work for organizations that focus on a number of areas, such as diversity, flexibility and professional development. Credit unions that don't prioritize this beware.

Kyum Kim, co-founder of the online professional network Blind, describes the impact of the coronavirus pandemic's enforced quarantine on people who work in financial services.

Grainne McNamara, financial services principal at Ernst & Young, explains that bank regulators have already been examining banks' cultures, and that's likely to continue. But banks can still fix culture problems during a pandemic.

The credit union regulator’s Office of the Inspector General outlined two former employees’ alleged carousing during work hours, the second high-profile scandal to hit the agency in just over a year.

Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase recently avoided shareholder votes tied to their use of arbitration clauses in sexual harassment cases. But socially conscious investors say the issue is likely to flare up again elsewhere and that banks would do well to address a wide range of gender equity matters head on.