1. National City/ PNC Bank
We chose to do our research on quality about National City bank who is now a part of PNC Bank of Pittsburgh. These two companies have spent a great deal of investment into developing the quality of their respective organizations. They are now merged

2. Teamwork Teamwork at the:
Corporate level
Branch level
Use a modern approach to teamwork to avoid groupthink and other group issues
Teamwork at the Corporate Level:
-At PNC, teamwork starts at the corporate level
- PNC uses different terminology to classify sections of their organizations to emphasize teamwork.
- They refer to each section as “teams” rather than “departments”
- Not only does this create a unified vision of the company, as one that works together rather than in competition, but it also creates a cascade effect throughout the company that emphasizes the importance of teamwork to the success of the company.
- An example of the team divisions of the company would be the “Identity theft team” or the “Customer Information Analysis Team”
Teamwork at the Branch level:
- PNC also uses teamwork at the Branch Level
- This is probably the biggest arena in which teamwork takes place, because it directly affects the outcome of daily goals
- PNC divides their branches into regions that compete for achieving the best results.
- One way of competition involves sales goals:
- The individual branches compete to see who sells the most credit cards
- They also compete to see who opens the most new savings or checking accounts
- Who opens the most new investment accounts
- As well as who refers the most new account openings
Modern approach to teamwork:
- PNC uses a modern definition of teamwork to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of group work throughout the company.
- D. Nelson refers to today’s teams as being of a completely different composition than those of the past
- Today, they are expected to develop their own initiatives, create their own courses of action, challenge authority, and work together to achieve a common goal
- At the branch level of PNC bank, the employees are expected to be self-motivated when working in teams.
- For example, the employees are expected to develop their own goals for sales and referrals of products and services.
- In addition, the employees work alongside the Branch Managers to develop courses of action for meeting the goals
- If there are any areas of discrepancy or doubt, the employees don’t hesitate to talk about it and come to a consensus before more action is taken
- This form of challenging authority in the proper manner avoids some common areas of group conformity, such as groupthink.
- By adding some discussion or conflict within the organization at times, the branch creates an open environment that discourages employees from simply agreeing to actions simply for the sake of harmony in the organization.
“In our business, you can't be successful without a commitment to teamwork throughout every level of the organization. We work together to meet our goals and, in the process, to help our customers meet their goals.” – PNC Corporate Values Statement

3. Strategic Planning Used planning to avoid economic downturn
Acquired Midlantic Bank Co. in 1995 & National City Bank in 2008 to diversify risk
Brought on new employees for a fresh vision of the future
Strategic planning of training programs to make effective employees.
Strategic planning has been a major area of emphasis for PNC bank, especially within the past year.
- During the recent economic downturn, PNC was able to avoid the collapse that occurred during many banks due to risky lending practices.
- Rather than focus their efforts on lending the most possible mortgages to bring in the largest possible revenue from interest, they took a different approach to gaining revenue.
- They began acquiring new banks in 1995 to diversify their risk across multiple organizations, as well as create an extra boost of earnings that came from investments, deposits, and other non-interest revenue sources.
- As you can see, they began with Midlantic Bank in 1995 and most recently acquired National City Bank in 2008.
- Another way strategic planning has been implemented into the organization is through the hiring of new employees.
- Most recently, PNC hired a new area President of the Ohio and Kentucky region, which is the area in which PNC is known as the largest bank.
- Kay Geiger, who is the new president, brought to the organization a fresh look at incorporating a small portion of risk into the conservative portfolio of investments at PNC.
- She recommended that PNC pursue a new trend in corporate banking, as a way of incorporating some higher-risk investments to receive a higher-return as well.
- Through corporate banking, PNC would handle the financing, cash-management, and general banking of some of the nation’s largest firms
- Since many of the new ventures started by the large corporations today are of high risk, they are able to give in return a higher than normal investment.
- In addition, PNC realizes that by working to gain the financing of the larger projects of these organizations, they will more than likely gain the general banking and other services required of these companies as well. This will, in turn, create a large boost in revenues due to deposits, line-of-credits, and other cash-management services.
Finally, we found that strategic planning is heavily involved in the creation of effective training programs within the company.
- These training programs are planned for to create the best opportunity for the new employees to “hit the ground running” once they begin their work on-the-job.
- Not only does it create the best chance for the employees to begin gaining rewards and incentives right away from their actions, but it also helps the organization by ensuring that their new employees will continue to uphold and practice those principles that are most highly valued by the PNC corporation.
“We apply knowledge, experience and innovation to develop and deliver the right solutions to all of our customers - large and small, retail and commercial.” – PNC Corporate Values Statement

4. Training Very intense employee training program
Required two-week training
Three month probation
Continued training programs every three months
Bi-annual review with Branch Manager
To get more in depth in terms of the training provided, we conducted a few interviews with members of the bank to gather some information.
PNC employs a very strict training program that is meant to prepare their new employees for the high expectations set by the company in regards to their performance on the job.
- To begin, each new employee is required to participate in a two week training program that consists of orientation to the business and its procedures.
- For each day, the employees are on the job for eight hours at a central location to complete the training process
- All training is computer based, which further regiments the process:
- For example, on each section of training, you are scored on the correctness of your responses.
- Each section has a required minimum score level that is needed to continue on to the next section.
- In addition, immediate feedback is given through this process. Employees are told what areas they either excel or need more practice in, so they can have some idea of their knowledge going into their position at the bank.
- After the two-week training period is finished, the new employees return to their respective branches to begin their on-the-job portion of the training.
- This probationary period lasts for three months
- During this time, the employees are heavily supervised by experienced tellers or other employees
- In addition, there is a limit placed on cash transactions, in which new tellers can only give out a certain amount before requiring a supervisory override.
- Autonomy is, in general, very limited for new employees. For example, they are limited on the amount for which they can sign off on cashiers checks.
- Once the employees are working on a normal schedule, they are required to complete continuing education training every three months to ensure continued understanding of the company policies.
- This training will consist of updates to the customer service, security exchange commission, robbery guidelines, and other federal training requirements
- This form of training is all completed online to allow the employees to continue their normal days work, while still completing their training requirements when they have free moments.
- Finally, PNC also uses a bi-annual review system to provide constant formal feedback throughout the year to their employees.
- This meeting between the employee and the Branch Manager is meant to develop goals for the next six-month period, as well as review the performance during the previous six-months.
- This serves as both a form of continual training, in making sure the employees are consistently making and meeting their goals, as well as a form of empowerment.
- By involving the employees in this system, it gives them a sense of ownership of their position. It allows them to feel a greater sense of pride in knowing that they took part in developing, and achieving, goals that directly affect the performance of the company they work for.

5. Customer Service
New products are rare; therefore, they gain their competitive advantage through customer service
Forms of customer service techniques:
Multiple lanes open at all times
Encourage bilingual employment
Implementing online banking system
Forms of gathering information:
Customer feedback surveys
Face-to-face interaction with customers
In the banking system, it is very hard to create a competitive advantage. The industry, by nature, does not introduce a new wave of products every few months, and simply changing interest rates is not enough to distinguish one bank from the next. It is too easy for competitive banks to match each others rates, or account privileges.
- Therefore, one of the only ways to create an advantage in this industry is to emphasize and practice exceptional customer service techniques.
PNC realizes that this is the biggest factor to their future success; therefore, they have implemented numerous service strategies that give their customers a special service feeling each time they visit the bank.
- For example, PNC requires that all lanes of the branch drive-through be open at all times.
- Regardless of the amount of employees working the drive-through at any given time, they are expected to be able to deliver exceptional customer service to all lanes, at all times.
- In addition, PNC encourages the employment of candidates who are bi-lingual.
- Since much of the company’s customers are of different nationalities, they have implemented a policy that requires at least one employee at each branch speaks the language most prominent, other than English, in a given community.
- In the Bloomington-Normal area, the requirement means that at least one employee should speak Spanish, to accommodate those customers who have difficulty with the English language.
- Finally, PNC has implemented the addition of an online banking system to accommodate those customers who are too busy to make their transactions at a branch lobby or drive-through.
- For this service, all transactions from transfers to payments, can be taken care of online.
- In addition, they have incorporated a Quickbooks book keeping system online, that appeals to the small business members of their market. This allows their business customers an additional way of keeping track of their business accounts without actually visiting the branch for updates.
All of this information is wonderful, when used correctly. Therefore, it is important that PNC collect their information from the most credible source, to ensure that the right policies are implemented that will help the company excel in the correct areas.
- The best source of feedback is collected through customer service surveys
- These surveys are taken at random
- They are conducted by a PNC employee, who calls four customers per month at random, and asks for a survey to be conducted. The responses of this survey are used in the consideration of new customer service strategies that may be implemented, and also in the distribution of branch rewards for exceptional customer service.
- Another form of information collection is simply through the face-to-face interaction between the employees and their customers.
- Since the employees are the first line of communication with customers, they are constantly listening to hear whether certain strategies are well received, or if new techniques should be considered.
- In the event that changes need to be made, the employees are expected to inform the Branch Managers about the issues, so they can be resolved in the most effective manner.
“Understanding that great banking and customer service require speed and flexibility, we trust the capabilities, character and judgment of our colleagues, and empower them to make decisions and deliver quality and value for our customers” – PNC Corporate Values Statement

6. Employee Empowerment Five strategies used for empowerment:
Employees are given autonomy of decision making
Use of cross-training
Use of teamwork problem solving
Rewarding employees for work
Intrinsic
Extrinsic
Communication in the workplace
Since the requirements of work are quite demanding at PNC bank, we were quite interested in the forms of employee empowerment that motivate the workers to perform at such a high level on a consistent basis.
To begin, we researched many different forms of employee empowerment, and eventually came across a list of five strategies of empowerment that many successful companies use. We then applied each of these strategies to PNC bank to get a better understanding of what they do at each branch to motivate employees.
- Our first strategy for empowerment is the autonomy that is given to employees at PNC bank.
- In this category, employees were described to be more motivated in performing their work at a high level, if given the autonomy to make their own decisions regarding their work.
- This involves giving the employees the right information needed to make well-informed decisions.
- PNC does this through their training program that is so regimented, as described earlier.
- On a more continual basis, though, PNC schedules their employees in shifts that allow them the opportunity to make their own decisions. Since many times, the Branch Manager is either not available to work, or is simply busy completing other tasks, the employees are expected to be able to make decisions that are in the best interest of the bank. Although there is a teller supervisor who makes the ultimate call on questionable transactions, the other employees still hold some autonomy in what transactions are suitable or not.
- Next, PNC uses cross-training of employees to give the opportunity for job-rotation to create motivation in the employees. Although job-rotation doesn’t change the depth of which a job is carried out, it does break up the monotony of the typical everyday routines.
- At PNC Bank, employees are cross-trained to numerous different positions that allow them the opportunity to experience many areas of the banking environment.
- For example, all loan officers are also trained on the teller line. One purpose of this is to ensure that their will always be enough people at the bank who are knowledgeable in performing transactions; however, one of the major benefits to this is that it gives the opportunity for these loan officers to sometimes experience different areas of their branch.
- The next area of empowerment we researched was the use of teamwork in problem-solving.
- We found this strategy to be very important to both the success of the bank and the motivation of employees.
- On one hand, this use of teamwork removes the hierarchy within the organization that many times contributes to conflict and disputes. In addition, this puts all the members of the team on one level, with a goal of completing the same task. Therefore, many times innovation is fostered in this type of environment that would otherwise be overshadowed by a strict sense of authority.
- Next, we looked into the reward system of PNC Bank, and how it uses both intrinsic and extrinsic forms of reward to motivate the employees in performing high quality work.
- Intrinsic rewards are those rewards that convey a sense of confidence and individualism.
- PNC instills a feeling of competence in their employees through the trust they emphasize in the everyday tasks of the organization.
- For example, the tellers are trusted to complete all transactions in a timely manner, while maintaining a high level of accuracy when balancing their cash drawers at the end of the day.
- In addition, PNC uses many different forms of extrinsic rewards to motivate their employees to perform well.
- Extrinsic rewards are those monetary or other incentives that aim to motivate from the outside – in.
- An example of extrinsic reward that is used by PNC Bank, is its cash bonus that is given to tellers who consistently balance their cash drawer successfully over a specific period of time.
- Another example would be if the employees receive a perfect customer service score for the month, they receive a small monetary bonus as well.
- Finally, we looked into the communication within the organization. Our research showed that those organizations that emphasize open lines of communication, will most likely possess the highest performing employees, as well as the most motivated individuals.
- In addition to the open door policy that already exists within the branches, PNC also strives to ensure that all levels of service are uniform throughout the company.
- This is achieved through the explicit set of rules and guidelines that are communicated to the employees each quarter, regarding the updates to customer service techniques, etc.
- These updates even go so far as to inform the tellers exactly what to say to their customers, and different suggested responses to issues that may come up during a transaction.