When it came to satisfying employees, Canada Trust could do no wrong. In the three previous Bankers’ Report Cards, the firm’s front-line workers rated it the best place to work. Last year when TD Bank announced it was acquiring CT, Investment Executive asked: “Will David show Goliath who’s boss, or will CT be cut down?”
It was still more than a year before the full integration of TD and CT would be complete and the outcome was anyone’s guess. Mergers, after all, are initially greeted by chaos, technology headaches, product nightmares and cranky staff.
Well, this year’s survey is done and it looks like David has in fact defeated Goliath and managed to tame the rest of the competition as well.
TD Canada Trust employees gave the newly integrated bank top scores in eight of 16 categories and tied for the highest average score with Bank of Montreal, which came first in six categories. That made TDCT the winner in our survey.
How did the new leadership manage to put the two together and keep spirits high? By planning carefully, proceeding in stages and being flexible, says Fred Tomczyk, executive vice president, retail banking.
Communication was also important, he adds, to keep branches informed of approaching changes. Branch conversions have been completed in waves, with Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec and northwestern Ontario expected to be converted by late last month. The rest of Ontario will be switched over on the August civic holiday.
Conversion means putting branches onto the same technology platform and integrating products, which means an intensive training program. Conversion leaders go into the branches a few weeks before and perform role-playing games with employees.
The goal is to have the wrinkles ironed out within three weeks of conversion and return the branches to business as usual. Tomczyk says the CT branches and employees have been more affected in the process than TD workers because they are being introduced to a whole new set of products and processes. CT employees also get a couple of days “practice” in a TD branch before they have to convert. Front-end technology hasn’t been an obstacle because it was brought over from Canada Trust.
Part of the strategy is to use what’s called the “plaid process,” which brings TD and CT employees together so they can lean on one another if they need clarification in a particular situation. Tomczyk says this is more important on the sales side because there are so many different types of transactions, whereas tellers are pretty comfortable after about three weeks because they do so many similar tasks.
Adapting the strategy in waves of integration has been important to the process because head office has been able to learn from its mistakes. After the conversion in Atlantic Canada over the Easter weekend, head office knew it needed to step up the technology and administrative training.
The Canada Trust mantra has always been its dedication to customer service. “Canada Trust really does look to provide the customer with an elevated level of service. We evaluate based on the client’s needs, not the bank’s interest,” an account manager with CT in Ontario told IE.
The merger has cut into that focus, although it has been minimal, says Tomczyk. “There are still gaps in customer service levels and we need to make improvements.”
“Clients do not like change, and a merger is difficult for them,” says another CT staffer in Ontario.
To measure the affect on customers, TDCT conducts phone surveys following the conversion of branches. “There’s a dip in the first month for customer service and it took about eight weeks in Atlantic Canada to pull it back up. In the West, it dipped as well but it’s coming back,” he says. “TD bought us and you really have to give it credit because it wanted to adopt CT’s retail banking models, and then we picked up what TD did well.”
The bank also surveys its employees before and after an integration to see how they have been affected. The surveys have been coined an “integration pulse.”
The IE survey shows that while the transition is going more smoothly than anyone would have thought, nothing is perfect. “With the conversion, the computer systems are horrible and the policies that have been implemented are really bad,” says a former TD banker in Nova Scotia.
There is uncertainty over what lies ahead, and employees’ greatest fear may be the loss of their particular corporate culture. “There has not been any pressure to accumulate assets in the past with Canada Trust, but in the future with TD, I don’t know if that will continue,” says a banker in Ontario.
As for the transition in Ontario, TDCT’s biggest centre and therefore left until last, Tomczyk says all hands are on deck. IE