By Maria Gendelman, Chief Culture & Experience Officer at ConnectOne Bank, Elizabeth Maggenis, Executive Vice President, Chief Lending Officer

Uncertainty is the word that describes the 2020 experience in a nutshell. We entered January with a strong economic foundation. Many banks were beginning to execute on strategic initiatives, expand on technology and attract new talent. Our plans, however, quickly shifted in March when COVID-19 entered the United States and began to spread. We immediately had to rethink how our businesses would operate during a pandemic, how we’d serve clients, and keep employees safe and secure, all while being forced into a quarantined state.

In the chaos of a new and unpredictable environment, growing cases and operating in a new remote state, we responded to one of the largest stimulus packages our country had seen and America’s Banks served as the conduits to get our businesses the funds needed to keep their staff employed.

While our investments in technology, communication tools and digital channels played an instrumental role in allowing us to serve our clients through these times, there was really one investment that proved paramount for ConnectOne’s ability to navigate the pandemic – our culture.

Investments in culture, once hard to quantify, can be directly correlated to business impact today. Our culture was the primary reason we were able to expedite and deliver some of the first PPP loans to customers, processing more than 3,000 applications, delivering $474M stimulus loans and saving more than 45,000 jobs. Even in times of uncertainty and economic hardship, our bank was able to not only do the right thing by meeting the needs of existing clients, but also still find opportunities to grow markets and a new customer base.

The pandemic served as a microscope separating true culture from culture-theatre. In these ever-changing uncertain times, it has become a necessity for banks to remain operational, innovative and seek long-lasting sustainable growth.

In order to cement a culture for the long-term, we believe the following:

Hire for Culture, Train for Skill: There are so many banking professionals that have the right skillsets to fit your hiring criteria, but few that fit with your bank culture. Start identifying culture-fit at the hiring process and change the dynamic and the employee engagement from the start.

Define Culture & Over Communicate: In order for employees to understand a bank’s culture, leadership needs to define the specifics of culture and make it a part of the institutional core values. At our company, we always look for professionals that embody entrepreneurial, dynamic and flexible behaviors, all critical attitudes in managing change and transformation. Every company should define what culture means inside their individual institution.

Innovation Culture is Baseline for Banks: The pandemic has taught us how capable banks are at accelerating digital change, but it also showed how crucial a culture of innovation is for the long-term. A bank’s measure of innovation culture was tested and quantified by how quickly they were able to shift to a virtual economy and how efficiently they were able to deliver stimulus to consumers and business owners amid the pandemic.

The financial services industry has been forced to adapt to the new normal brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. It’s never been more clear that the shift to a digital and virtual world made the case for a strong culture even more critical. Banks and financial institutions will continue to face pressures to accelerate digitization in an environment with more uncertainty ahead, and culture will serve as the barometer for a bank’s perseverance, growth and ultimate success. As we move into further unchartered waters in 2021, culture will remain one of the most important factors that contribute to a bank’s long-term success.