Financial Services Retreat
Results in Development of Two New Teams

by Donna Andreason

The Financial Services group, under the direction of Ann Anderson, met for their second annual retreat on October 22, 2003. The primary focus of this retreat was to discuss the results of our 2003 Financial Management employee satisfaction survey. While the results of this survey met or exceeded industry standards in most categories, there is still room for improvement which we wanted to address.

This year’s retreat was led by Debby Seaman and members of the Financial Services leaders team with the assistance of FM-trained facilitators. The session began with a colorful exercise which helped demonstrate everyone’s learning, communication and leadership style using Personality Color charts. After a lunch break, everyone broke into groups to discuss the major items found in the employee satisfaction survey that could use some work. We were asked to expand on the following issues:

• Financial Services employees would like a clear idea of learning and growth opportunities and what is expected of us.
• Clear and open communication between departments, Financial Management leaders and staff
• Explore and limit office politics and favoritism
• Provide an atmosphere where staff can have trust in leaders

Two teams have been created based on the results of this retreat; a cross training team and a team to address perceptions of office politics and favoritism. Both teams will meet in January to discuss the specific concerns of their topic and the direction each team will take in the following months.