Interesting to see that two years after a systems collapse left Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest and Ulster Bank customers unable to use debit cards or cash machines for days, the bank has been fined £42 million by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and £14 million by the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA).
“The problems arose due to failures at many levels within the RBS Group to identify and manage the risks which can flow from disruptive IT incidents,” said Tracey McDermott, director of enforcement and financial crime at the FCA.
The FCA release will make painful reading for RBS – “when it noticed problems with the upgrade it decided to uninstall it without first testing the consequences of that action” – although the embattled bank will however take comfort in the fact that the FCA concludes that the incident was not the result of insufficient investment in IT infrastructure.
Perhaps there are a couple of issues here. One being is punishment the only way to encourage people to do better? Another being rushing to a solution without considering the consequences is not a good thing. Both of these thoughts are not rocket science so what drives these behaviours?
Negative behaviours do not encourage people
Telling your people what they are doing wrong is good but it must be also balanced with praise for what they are doing right. Perhaps it is easier to see the negative and more difficult to see the positive! So going back to our bank story – imagine one of your people makes a mistake, would your response be to fine them two years later? So why have FCA and PRA done this? I am amazed at this punitive management style – perhaps this is what is wrong with business and the world of work.
Cullen Scholefield believes in feedback that helps people to develop and get it right. We also believe that supervisors and managers need to work at giving effective feedback and having those difficult conversations.
https://www.cullenscholefield.com/respect-review/development-programmes-menu/feedback-skills/
https://www.cullenscholefield.com/respect-review/development-programmes-menu/managing-poor-performer/
Take time to think things through and listen
Who will ever really know what happened when RBS realised it had a problem. We know that people make mistakes. The challenge is then to ensure that you fix the problem and work with the person who made the mistake to ensure that they learn from this and do not repeat it!!
Our real problem that was also IT based happened only yesterday. Our culture is about involving our people in every aspect of the business and making sure that everyone has a voice – so no suggestion is ever disregarded. Guess what? We resolved our problem, the error was fixed and all we now have to do is to focus on more detailed one to one training for the poor soul who caused the problem!
Bank bashing is becoming a national pastime. What effect is that having on the people who work in banks? So potential areas that we could all explore are:
- What are our internal consultancy skills like? Can we as people professionals offer real help to our organisations?
https://www.cullenscholefield.com/respect-review/development-programmes-menu/internal-consultancy-skills/
- How effective is our on job training? Is it properly structured and well executed? How well do you train your trainers to train?
https://www.cullenscholefield.com/respect-review/development-programmes-menu/one-one-training-skills/
- How happy are your people? How involved and committed are they to your organisation? We ran a Roadshow earlier this year called Love your People. We have some ideas to share…
https://www.cullenscholefield.com/circle-peers/events/love-people/
Our 2015 dates for Circle of Peers have been set – download our reminder. Finally, if you have not received one of our desk calendars or if you would like more do let us know by eMailing develop@www.cullenscholefield.com