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When you think about what separates good companies from great companies, one word tends to stick out. Culture. Companies who invest in their teammates and attracting people who are passionate about what they do are more likely to have a positive impact with their customers. C&N prides itself in creating a positive and fun work environment that puts their teammates in position for success. Here, we’ll share the things that have worked for our team in hopes it could help yours, too.

Strong Foundation

The foundation of C&N’s culture is their vision, mission and values. The vision for C&N is that every customer says, “C&N is the only bank I need.” This is supported by their vision of creating value through lifelong relationships. Finally, C&N teammates achieve these two goals by living the values of teamwork, excellence, responsibility & accountability, respect, integrity, client-focus and have fun. While many organizations have these kinds of guiding principles, what’s different about C&N is that they are part of daily conversations. Many meetings even begin by reviewing them because it’s the real reason everyone is there and what the true purpose is, which at its core is simply our customers. It’s extremely important that they don’t get lost in the daily grind.

Framework of Expectations

If building a house, and the mission, vision and values are the foundation, then the framework of the house are C&N’s Cornerstones. The Cornerstones are guides teammates use to help deliver on the brand promise consistently across the entire footprint, so no matter where you connect with C&N whether it’s in Doylestown, PA, Hornell, NY or by phone, you can always expect the same great level of service. There are guides for the different forms of communications like written and face-to-face to a general awareness of products and offerings. The goal isn’t to make teammates into robots, but to give them the tools to offer customers a great experience every time. C&N’s Client Care team is exceptional at the Phone & Video Communications Cornerstone because they are using it constantly as C&N’s main call center. When a customer contacts C&N, the goal is to make sure they are connected to the correct person the first time. Generally, the Care Center team can handle most customer’s needs, but if they can’t, they will put you on hold and call ahead to see if the person you need is there and if so, verify they are the correct person. If not, they will come back to the customer and give them the option to continue holding or they will find the correct person and call you, whatever is most convenient.  This is just one example of C&N’s Cornerstones.

Culture Champions

All aspects of C&N’s culture from Cornerstones to creating fun activities in our offices on days like Ampersand Day, our adopted C&N holiday to recognition and awards is overseen by the Impact Team. The Impact Team plays a vital role in the organization. It is made up of team members from across C&N’s entire footprint and is led by Brittany Mondock in Elkland, Rose Sigel in Doylestown and Elizabeth Johnson in Sayre.  In addition to all their other responsibilities, twice a year, at least before covid, the entire C&N organization would come together to have a day or learning, fun and celebration. The Impact Team not only handled the planning of the celebration itself but also selected award recipients based on nominations from managers and supervisors. In addition to recognition from supervisors during events, they created a way to allow for peer to peer recognition on throughout the year via their intranet. This allows employees to recognize each other for offering superior service to customers or for doing something extraordinary. “We feel it is important to recognize the little every day wins as well as our big accomplishments,” said Elizabeth Johnson, Community Office Manager and Impact Team Leader.

One of the most recent concepts from the Impact Team is referred to as, “how might we?”. The idea is instead of immediately shooting down an idea or a suggestion for whatever reason, ask how could we make this happen. This shifts your mindset to one of innovation instead of the “this is how things have always been done.” As a small company that has been going through a lot of growth, it’s important for to be open to innovation and ensuring that all teammates have a voice and feel heard.

 Teamwork

The final key ingredient to success is their teammates. They are the screws that hold the entire house together. As an organization, C&N has been fortunate to attract team members who are aligned with their values and goals.

An organizations success can be attributed to many things. At C&N, they believe their success comes from attracting caring team members and giving them the tools and resources to create value for the community members they serve. By doing this, teams feel trust and are given to autonomy to reach goals.