Effective handing over – a risk management imperative (1)
Dear Readers, have you ever been asked to take over another schedule on the job without having any proper orientation or knowledge about the new schedule? This is what readily comes to mind:
- Another staff member has either been sacked or exited suddenly.
- The previous schedule officer has been transferred suddenly or had to perform relieving duties elsewhere in the company.
- As a form of “detriment” or “punishment”
- You applied for the internal job advert and have been appointed.
Any of the above events are real and common. One must not think that being transferred is a punishment. Don’t be deterred by what others think. The only problem is when you take up the appointment and you are faced with a dilemma: No written guidelines or handing over notes! Sometimes other staff members are too busy to teach or coach you.
Your Supervisor or Manager asks the others to train you but they just give you word of mouth training without any basis. In the banking sector, this is a highly risky thing to do. Many of us have probably experienced a job where we were thrown into the deep end from day one and left to fend for ourselves with no handover notes and no direction.
What is a handing over note?
A handover note is a document written by an outgoing employee for the successor that details the daily tasks and responsibilities of their position. It should be used as a guide for the incoming person on how to perform the job duties.
Employees come and go all the time. However, when they do, it is vital that the job handover is well orchestrated to avoid disruptions to business operations. Regardless of the circumstances under which an employee leaves, a poorly handled job handover can be detrimental to your company. Handovers are an essential process for any organisation. While organisations usually place a lot of focus on onboarding and offboarding exiting employees, completing a formal handover process is just as vital.
As a business leader/manager, you should ensure whoever takes on the workload has a detailed account of the job duties. A successful job handover will help the new representative taking on the responsibility to settle into their position and feel more comfortable adapting to their new role.
Effective handover documentation should be clear, concise and relevant to the schedule. It should allow the person or team taking over to quickly understand the job’s current state and easily take over the day-to-day tasks and associated responsibilities.
The benefits of transfers
It is important to know why people are transferred. There are so many benefits in transfers, so please do not feel bad when its your turn. There are times that people feel they are being punished for the transfer, but take it from me, it is good to know what happens elsewhere. Your supposed obstacles will turn into golden opportunities for your future. Management effects transfers for some of the following reasons:
- To build up a more satisfactory work team
- To increase the effectiveness of the organization.
- To increase versatility and competence of key positions.
- To deal with fluctuations in work requirements.
- For multi-skilling of staff
- For creation of more opportunities for all
- To place people into their best fit roles
In the change, staff gets to have the opportunity of meeting other staff, clients, vendors and experience and appreciate the different categories of clients and learn how to relate professionally with them. It also becomes a welcome change of environment and reduces monotony of repetitive work.
Why do we need effective handing over?
Let us look at a few scenarios in banking:
The New Relationship Manager: A few years ago, a bank appointed a new Relationship Manager from one of the defunct local banks. She was suddenly given about fifty customers to manage, without any proper introduction and handing over. As an experienced person, she felt uncomfortable when she had to call customers to confirm cheques they had issued before effecting payment! Just selecting the telephone number from the system was not enough to confirm that you were speaking to the right person. This was during the covid period.
One day she was accused of facilitating a fraud! A customer claimed that a big cheque had been honoured without her knowledge. As a new staff, many did not believe her even though she explained that she had talked to a lady customer who confirmed issuing that cheque.
The customer claimed that for several hours that afternoon, her telephone did not receive any call! Thanks to covid, the new Relationship Manager had used her cellphone instead of the fixed landline to call the lady, and lo and behold, the evidence was clearly seen on her call list on her telephone! That saved her.
Apparently some internal staff had colluded with fraudsters and telco staff to defraud the customer through call divert! Of course they were sacked and the matter resolved but the reputation of the bank suffered slightly. This became a lesson to the bank. New staff who deal with customers should be introduced to each other before sensitive duties are given to them.
The New Operations Officer: A customer sent an email to his bankers to effect a fixed deposit for him. This had been the norm for several years. The customer had completed an email indemnity form prior to this. Statement requests were mostly made by e-mail. In this day of virtual banking, this customer only goes to the banking hall for cheque books or debit cards.
Within fifteen minutes of his sending the mail, he received a prompt response from the bank asking him to complete an email indemnity before it is done. The customer was also outside town and had no facility to print out a PDF form, complete and scan to the bank. He therefore decided to rather give the same instruction to another bank where he had an account.
Just then a call came through from a new staff from his main bank, explaining that he was new in the bank and did not sight any indemnity on file. Anyway, it eventually ended well and the fixed deposit was done, while the customer returned to the branch subsequently to complete a new indemnity form, for their records. There was a missing link in the handing over.
The New Credit Officer: An Officer from the Credits Department of head office was transferred to a local branch to attend to their loan facility requests. Upon assumption of duty, the branch manager did not orient him properly about the nature of businesses there, the characteristics of the customers and their expectations from the bank. The previous credit officer in the branch had been sacked for some unethical acts.
The new credit officer, who had been used to just analyze the proposals on paper, now had to be physically present to understand the nitty gritties of the local businesses, especially the farmers and micro-financing part which can be quite risky. He also ended up taking bribes and covered up some diversions that a customer had made of a loan granted. This also resulted in him being sanctioned by the bank.
It is always necessary that handing over is thorough, and where there is a need to give some historical background of a department or branch, it is done by the leadership of that branch or department. We must never assume that the incoming person already knows.
I can go on, but these examples alone can cause embarrassment to the bank, errors on the part of staff who take over, and lack of seamlessness in the banker-customer relationship.
Why do you need to prepare a good handover?
A good handover (sometimes known as offboarding) will help new team members settle into their position more quickly and feel comfortable and confident with their new job.
A detailed handover can also benefit other staff and the broader business, as you’ll find much less disruption to team workflows. This is particularly important if a role is being taken over by a new member of staff, who will be unfamiliar with the organisation in general.
Clear, detailed notes that fully outline any processes and procedures will help the incoming member of staff settle in and get to grips with the job more quickly.
It is always normal for staff to exit the company but there are some cases of loss of institutional memory which costs the company a lot, sometimes resulting in losses. That is why documentation is very critical especially in financial institutions.
I will pause here for now
TO BE CONTINUED
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alberta Quarcoopome is a Fellow of the Institute of Bankers, and CEO of ALKAN Business Consult Ltd. She is the Author of Three books: “The 21st Century Bank Teller: A Strategic Partner” and “My Front Desk Experience: A Young Banker’s Story” and “The Modern Branch Manager’s Companion”. She uses her experience and practical case studies, training young bankers in operational risk management, sales, customer service, banking operations and fraud.
CONTACT
Website www.alkanbiz.com
Email:alberta@alkanbiz.com or albique@yahoo.com
Tel: +233-0244333051/+233-0244611343