The Canadian National Bank Case Analysis

In the case of 'The Canadian National Bank', Lesley Mahon, is the customer service manger at the Chatham branch she is contemplating what action she should take in regards to a serious allegation of harassment laid upon her by Pam Stewart. Pam began giving Lesley a hard time as soon as she was hired for the manager's position. It was a well-known fact that Pam could be difficult to manage generally and did not with many of the performance expectations the bank introduced over the last few years.

This case outlines different perceptions, of Lesley and Pam's view of the facts as well as each other's motivation. This case also contains long-term issues in its organizational culture that should have been addressed prior to this related complaint. However, Pam's complaint needs to be dealt with by the NCEC about Lesley immediately. After taking into consideration Pam's perception on the conflict, Lesley arrived at three alternatives for the route she would take - have a meeting with Pam and Robert to try and resolve the conflict; send a formal complaint to NCEC regarding Pam's unacceptable behavior, or simply quit her position as service manager at the Chatham branch.

The best recommendation for Lesley, is to send a complaint to NCEC regarding Pam's behavior. However, Lesley should first try the alternative of resolving the conflict with a non-confrontational but mediated meeting with Pam and Robert. If that approach is unsuccessful, then she should follow through with the complaint to NCEC. This decision will benefit Lesley because she will get the help she needs from NCEC to resolve the conflict with Pam.

Introduction

Lesley Mahon

Lesley Mahon is a 24-year-old manager of customer service at the Chatham branch since October 1996. Lesley is very well educated and graduated from the Honors Business Administration Program at the Richard Ivey School of Business in the spring of 1996. Lesley also completed a specialized training program with the Canadian National Bank regarding all aspects of retail banking. Lesley is well liked by her colleagues and they describe her as considerate, calm and competent. Lesley has future goals of working for the treasury department at head office.

Pam Stewart

Pam Stewart is a 43 year old customer service representative at the Chatham bank. She has over 25 years of experience working at the bank however; the only education she received was her high school diploma. Pam is viewed by her colleagues to be very stern, intimidating, exacting and professional. Pam applied for the position of customer service manager at the Chatham bank but she was not offered the position. Pam is currently going through family issues, as her young teenage daughter just has had a child and Pam and her husband are taking care of the child.

The Canadian National Bank

According to The Canadian National Bank, the manager of personal banking is responsible for attracting new business to the bank in the form of loans and financial services whereas; the manager of customer service is in charge of controlling costs and assuring the overall quality of customer service. There are many changes to the banking industry which now direct customer service representatives to become more familiar with the entire range of the bank's products and services. For customer service representatives at most branches, this has meant reduced hours, flexible schedules, and sometimes shared jobs. The Chatham branch is a small branch with twelve staff. Over the past three years, there have been three different managers.

Problem Statement

At 10:00 am on February 26 1997, Lesley Mahon, manager of customer service at the Chatham Branch of the Canadian National Bank, just got off the phone with Robert Aronson, the manager for all branches of the bank in the Chatham region. Robert Aronson informed Lesley that Pam Stewart one of the Chatham branch's customer service representatives had complained in a formal written statement to the "National Committee for Employee Concerns" that Lesley was stopping Pam's personal and professional development by not allowing her to take her business courses. This is a very serious allegation that could affect Lesley's career in a negative way. Lesley needed to quickly decide what action she should take to find an effective solution to this accusation.

Problems and Sub-Problems

Apart from the main problem stated, there are a couple sub-problems within the Canadian National Bank case that led to the main issue. To begin, there have been many new initiatives implemented in the banking industry, that Lesley had to deal with. One of these new changes, is the 'Customer Service Capacity Management System', that was implemented to create a more cost- effective match of customer service traffic with the number of customer service representatives scheduled at any given time. This new system requires the number of transactions made by customer service representatives during a day as well as the down time between transactions to be recorded and collected by a centralized information group. Then they would be able to detect any excess or lack of customer service representatives on schedule. The centralized group then creates a schedule for the branch for the following twelve months that must be implemented by the customer service manager at the branch. This new initiative puts additional stress on the employees and most definitely on Lesley the manager having to implement this with her staff. Being observed on your work performance can cause people to act out in different ways. Also having your normal work routine changed needs time to adapt to (schedule changes, job positions eliminated, longer work periods etc.)

A few management errors took place during this case. On Monday morning, October 28th, Pam sent a request to change her job description back to a customer service representative exclusively. In September, Pam and another customer service representative, Sarah Wright had signed an agreement to share two positions, customer service representative and the utility clerk position. This change had been made after Sarah's full-time position had been eliminated because of a CSCM recommendation. Lesley made the mistake of allowing Pam and Sarah to come to a decision amongst themselves. Lesley is the customer service manager and she should have worked with Sarah and Pam together to come to an agreement related to the work situation. Another management error took place when Robert Aronson broke the rule of confidentiality by informing