2023 Community Bank Case Study Competition Journal

2023 COMMUNITY BANK CASE STUDY COMPETITION

The CEO, Andrew Samuel, has built the company on the basis of creating a community that serves the community by positively impacting lives.

creating a community, they have gained a workforce that enjoys coming to work each day. This has been achieved by monthly culture hours where a variety of topics are discussed, not including work, quarterly Link Ups to allow several locations to come together, and small talk amongst coworkers about non-work related topics are encouraged as long as tasks are still completed for the day. Due to the emphasis of culture they integrate into their workplace community, they have appointed Ray Chung as Chief Culture Officer. Ray Chung is in charge of all culture related events such as the culture hours and fronts the Celebration Team to get the offices to participate in holiday festivities, and celebrating bank milestones in both the corporate office and branch locations. This is what is seen by employees, but behind the scenes, he is also an HR liaison where he administers questionnaires to potential hiring candidates, but he focuses on making sure that they fit the culture and how they align with what they put forth at the bank. There is emphasis placed on the fact that the employees of LINKBANK are humans who strive for personal connections and not working robots who are stuck in a cubicle in confinement for eight hours of their day. LINK is also an acronym where Live, Integrity, Nurture, and Knowledge are disbursed heavily throughout the office through signage. Employees are held to the standard of fulfilling these values and each meeting is started with LINK Stories where employees share when they have observed or experienced another employee displaying one or many of those values.

TogetHER was launched, where women in the industry come and speak to the women of the bank and activities are coordinated to create a bonding time for women from all LINKBANK locations. Most recently, an overall wellness initiative was launched that provides resources for all employees with all avenues of wellness where an employee checklist was sent out. This checklist has several different aspects of wellness, from financial, to physical, to mental well-being and at the end of the year, for every item you have completed, the employee will earn entries for the chance of extra PTO. Bank management strives to make LINKBANK an exceptional place to work for their employees. They do this by continuously monitoring their business and refining and adding where it is necessary. The CEO, Andrew Samuel, has built the company on the basis of creating a community that serves the community by positively impacting lives. It is important to note that their slogan, “Positively Impacting Lives,” is not directed strictly to the customers. The culture and community has impacted the lives of the employees and that has made them a great place to work. By

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