2023 Community Bank Case Study Competition Journal

Moving forward with the major role staffing has played for the bank, they have been able to retain a majority of employees even with the combination of those that joined as a result of the Gratz National Bank merger and are expected to combine in future mergers. While they have seen some executives come and go, all of the current executives are committed to the fact that they are in this for the long haul. This is crucial in the times of growth they are experiencing as well as prioritizing all employees. They have been able to put their employees first and foremost by adding benefits, reviewing compensations, and creating programs so that they can serve the community to the best of their ability. Essentially, what they are doing is setting their employees up for success in the event of an executive leader stepping down and giving their employees the opportunity to step up into an executive role. Since LINKBANK is now publicly traded, the succession of executives is the decision of the shareholders but this program sets all employees up for the chance of climbing the corporate ladder.

The success and wellbeing that LINK strives to see from its employees has bled into their use of technology within the bank. The pandemic brought along with it a major transformation of technology use throughout the company. With a majority of staff working remotely, they launched a new software that allows logging on from a single desktop which has consequently led to a more simplified data center management. This transition to a cloud system overall made it more difficult for the 2022 system conversion to Jack Henry due to the new core system not being designed for clouds, but the technology persevered. This core system conversion was a major accomplishment due to the amount of precision required from deposit operations and loan operations daily. Luckily, with another conversion towards the end of this year, Partners Bank runs the same core system of Jack Henry that LINKBANK had converted to the previous year. These key technological advances have allowed the bank to provide the utmost service to their clientele and give customers an evolved banking experience.