Mountain Bank
Case Study Scenario
Mountain Bank is located in the northwest United States. The bank has four major business lines: retail banking, consumer lending, real estate and mortgage banking, and corporate banking. Traditionally, Mountain Bank has had a strong presence in the retail banking line, with only a limited presence in the other lines. However, deregulation in the banking industry has led to mergers and acquisitions for Mountain Bank, as well as for several of its competitors.
Retail banking includes traditional banking activities such as providing checking and savings accounts. Mountain Bank currently has about 50 percent of the market for retail accounts in its area. Often, however, these accounts are not very profitable. Consumer lending encompasses a variety of secured and unsecured consumer loans, such as home equity lines of credit, automobile loans, boat loans, and card lines of credit. Mountain Bank currently has about 25 percent of this market. Real estate and mortgage banking involves obtaining and servicing home mortgage loans, which are seen as a stable form of income for most banks. Mountain Bank currently has less than 10 percent of this market. Corporate banking provides services to businesses. Corporate clients are provided with a wide variety of basic services, as well as financing for equipment acquisitions and plant expansions. These services are often seen as very profitable. However, Mountain Bank has a very small presence in the corporate market—less than 5 percent of the market, according to current estimates.
Mountain Bank has established a strategy of leveraging its strong retail banking presence into gains in the real estate and corporate areas. Past experience suggests that one of the best methods for achieving this leverage is cross‐selling, which occurs when tellers and customer service representatives convince customers with retail accounts to open corporate accounts or to obtain home mortgages from Mountain Bank.
Recent studies have found that bank tellers are critical to the success of Mountain Bank. In fact, one study found that customers’ experiences with tellers is the single most important driver of customer satisfaction. After all, a bank teller is often the only person an individual customer has contact with when visiting a bank branch. Although fewer tellers are needed every year due to technological improvements, tellers are still the heart and soul of a bank.
A typical branch of Mountain Bank has three to seven tellers, depending on size and location. Floating tellers (part‐timers) are also used to increase staff during lunch hours and pay days. Mountain Bank has traditionally approached the teller position as a low‐paying, entry‐level position. Tellers are frequently part‐time employees. Turnover is quite high, and successful tellers are often transferred to customer service positions.
Questions:
What competitive business strategy do you recommend for Mountain Bank?
Provide a rationale for why the recommended strategy was selected.
What are the current human resource practices being used by Mountain Bank?
Based on the universalistic approach and commitment strategy, what four human resource practices do you recommend for Mountain Bank? Provide an explanation of the impact the recommended human resource practices will have on bank employees.
Which of the four human resource strategies do you recommend for Mountain Bank? Provide a rationale for why the recommended human resource strategy was selected and the impact it will have.
Requirements:
Complete a 2- to 3-page paper, in addition to the title and reference pages, in current APA formatting 12-point font, double-spaced, indented paragraphs, citations, reference list.