and mailed. This is done always in the presence of another officer. The
management needed to know how the bank was connected to the out-
side world by, for example, reviewing the incoming invoices and
engagement contracts to know who we were dealing with. This step
gave us—in three months’ time—a great feel for the bank, its pulses,
and its operations.
2.Hire new employees
We started looking for new employees to help. We needed at least
two tellers, a highly qualified credit analyst, and a good accountant.
We contacted some of the tellers and loan administration officers who
had resigned from the bank, to see if they would come back. Only one
teller accepted our offer; all the rest declined. In fact, some of them
did not care to return our calls. We then started thinking about a way
out of this dilemma. One of the management team came up with the
idea of hiring business school students from the surrounding colleges
and training them on the job. This proved to be a great idea. We
appointed juniors at the business schools of the colleges and univer-
sities surrounding the bank as tellers and administration personnel.
Later, these student workers became candidates for full-time positions
as operations manager and supervisors. As to the training of these
new employees, we started looking for a high-quality and experienced
auditor of banking operations and compliance. We wanted an auditor
who would critique and at the same time coach and train the new
staff as he audited the bank. We asked him to come on a quarterly
basis and to make himself available for consultation. We instructed
all employees to be open to any comments or lack of compliance dis-
covered by the auditor. We assembled them before the audit and
asked them to look at the auditor as a teacher and a coach and to be
truthful and open when answering any questions. The management
team also had a meeting with the auditor and told him that the man-
agement and the board of directors wanted to learn in great detail
what was wrong in the bank, not simply what was right. We also as-
sured the auditor that we wanted to fix any problems he found as
soon as they were recognized.
3.Familiariaze management and staff with computer systems and outside
service providers
Management also started to familiarize the staff with the computer
operating system and with the bank check processing and technology
providers in order to know how the business is conducted.
4.Review all financial ledgers and financial operations
On the financial front, the new management went through the
bank financial statement and ledger in great detail with the chiefStarting an RF Bank in the United States 301