The going rate for a new bank teller is in the range of $9.00-$11.00 per hour. That's ridiculous. Bank teller's should make $20 per hour. This article is about poor management (which is interesting) even though it seems like an article about bank tellers (who are boring).
I returned home from a two-year church mission in the spring of 2003 at the age of 21. I was ambitious, big-picture wise, but I wasn't in a hurry to do anything. My parents prodded me to get a job, so I attended an interview at a local credit union (My father set the interview up). I had no resume, and no relevant skills, but my father is kind of a genius, so the bank manager thought I might have good genes. After several interviews, the manager decided that none of the candidates were good, so she went with the best of the terrible options: me. Her decision to hire me as a teller, and my decision to take the job impacted my life in significant ways. Were it not for that first teller job, I would be in a completely different career and probably in a different state right now.
Throughout my five-year mini-career in consumer banking, I was employed in seven different positions. Although these positions were in the same industry, the skill-sets each required were all over the map. I quickly picked up on tellering and became an excellent cash handler and customer service agent (in my own mind, at least). Six months in, I was pushing hard for a promotion and a raise from my meager $7.25 per hour. The powers that be recognized that I was a talented teller, so they made accommodations to give me a part-time consumer loan officer job to mesh with my busy school schedule.
I was an A or A+ teller, and I was a B or B- auto loan officer. I quickly learned the loan policies and procedures, but there were a few areas of the job that I was not cut out for. Nevertheless, my good performance earned me another promotion and I moved on. My third position was challenging and rewarding and I excelled again, back up to the A- range. My pay increased along with my responsibility. At that point I managed to impress a manager at another bank and he offered me a job so I went. The new position required a completely different skill set and was insanely boring. My performance dropped down to a C+. Luckily, my old boss at the credit union hired me back as assistant manager where I managed to do a fine job, possibly a B rating. I was eventually promoted to a seventh position and the company had high hopes. They still viewed me as that A+ teller, and they expected nothing less. Unfortunately, I struggled until I left for law school. I hate to say it, but I was probably a C- or D+ quality in that last position.
At some point, my company paid good money to have me tested. The test consisted of personality profiling and IQ testing. The results showed that I was a 90% match for one particular position with a lot of responsibility, and I was an 88% match for a job as a teller. The testing computer felt that I would not be a good fit for many other positions. Not surprisingly, the company didn't listen to the results. They evaluated me as a $20+ per hour employee, and a teller was a "less-than-$10" type of job, so they stuck me in an available job that I wasn't cut out for, and I eventually quit.
I managed one teller who somehow got every male customer to fall in love with her. (There are at least four of my former co-workers that will think I'm talking about them) People would add accounts and services just so they could see her more often. Sometimes, business owners would wait in-line strategically to use her as their teller. These men never dated her (she was in a relationship) and she dressed modestly, but for some reason these men loved to interact with our star teller.
The company wanted to promote her to something else, but luckily her schedule wouldn't allow it. She would have been a terrible loan officer. Fortunately, she continued to excel as a teller, but eventually her schedule cleared up and she had to leave to do something else for more money. My manager desperately wanted her to stay, but the big-wigs would never pay $20/hr for a teller... ever... and no other positions were open. "Teller positions are not worth that much. The market doesn't pay tellers that much."
The first problem with this type of job evaluation is that managers and owners suck at evaluating jobs. The second problem is that most companies see front line employees and staff as a cost rather than an investment.
The market evaluates the worth of a teller position at a low wage because companies apparently don't see the value in a teller. "Wells Fargo doesn't pay more, so I won't!" I can tell you from first hand experience that managers often see tellers as a necessary evil. (They won't admit this though) The question then is what data or what criteria do managers use to determine that a loan officer or assistant manager position is any more important or profitable than a teller position? Our star teller made something like $9 per hour, but I guarantee she made or saved the credit union ten times that. We got new accounts and loans all the time because of her skill set (She was fast and accurate, in addition to her ability to charm).
Our Star was replaced by an atrocious teller that stuck around for quite a long time. She made something in the neighborhood of $10 bucks an hour and she probably lost us accounts every single day. She made mistakes, but they were never fireable offenses.
The difference in wages between what we wanted to pay Star, and what we paid her replacement was $20,000 per year. That's the kind of money that makes the big-wigs drool or cry. "What kind of idiot would pay a teller $20,000 more per year than he had to??" Unfortunately, management didn't realize that a substandard teller actually cut away from profits. She single handedly destroyed two large business accounts. I can't remember the exact numbers, but I'm sure that her terribleness easily cost the company over $20,000 per year. Star teller, on the other hand, would convince upset business owners to stay at the credit union, she'd bring in her friends, her friends friends, and her friend's fathers. Every time a customer came in to the branch, he was exposed to our brochures, our posters, and all of the advertising material we could throw at him. That teller projected an image onto customers which made them think that our entire credit union was as high-quality as she was. She independently increased the value of our entire brand because people saw her every day.
Most managers and big-wigs would promote a teller like Star. They wouldn't think about how the skill set required for a teller is drastically different than the skill set required for a loan processor or manager. They wouldn't consider that the value of an employee who enjoys her job is exponentially better than the value of an employee who hates her job. Unfortunately, most established bankers are too stubborn to even consider paying a teller enough to keep them around. As a reaction to this stubbornness, one company actually started to value applicants who were boring, ambitionless, and shy. The theory was that these people would stick around for a longer period of time, so the training costs per employee would go down.
On a side note (I wish I could use footnotes): Aside from stubbornness, many companies are afraid of risk. They feel, as explained above, that tellers or other front-liners are a necessary evil and they assume that a $20/hr employee is just as likely to fail as a $10/hr employee. This indicates that their interviewing and training methods are inadequate.
So what does it say about your company when your front line is just a fill-in employee. What does it say when the person who interacts with the most clients and customers is the least qualified employee in the entire company? What does it say when your company is unwilling to pay a front-line employee for dominating the position, but your company is willing to promote the employee they could be terrible at?
I believe my argument also holds up in different industries as well. Consider a receptionist at a law firm where the attorneys charge incredibly high rates or a billing clerk at a dental office where the dentist charges even higher rates. One client is probably worth between $5,000 and $10,000 to the company. If four clients quit coming back because they are put off by your front line, your company gets nailed for $20,000 to $40,000 per year. If your clients feel welcome, informed, and comfortable, they will refer their friends. I don't have time to do a study or full analysis, but I would be willing to bet that a front line employee is credited with 10-20% of a customer's feel for the company. That 20% could quickly turn off your customers.
My point in all this is that managers should evaluate employees in isolation. How much does X employee make or save my company? How much more will I have to pay X employee to stay? What negative impact would replacing X employee with Y employee have? If the negative impact of removing X is greater that the extra you will have to pay them, you've made a poor decision. I don't think this is that novel of an idea, but I'm convinced that most managers just look at what everyone else pays for that position, and refuse to pay much more. Preconceived notions that do not stand up to logic cause slowness, dullness, and stagnation. Hopefully future managers can avoid that trap.
