2020 MidWestOne Financial Group, Inc. Annual Report

Taking Care of Customers

“We asked our employees to look out for each other and to make sure that we were creating as safe of a work environment as we could.”

— DAVID LINDSTROM, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT FOR RETAIL BANKING

D uring the initial days of the public health emergency, it quickly became clear that issues of safety were of the utmost importance—including the safety of MidWest One’ s customers and employees. Limiting transmission of the COVID-19 virus was everyone’s responsibility, but just how to accomplish that was not completely clear at first. Nevertheless, MidWest One was quick to implement safety precautions across the organization while still prioritizing customer service. Achieving that balance, especially in a time of so much uncertainty, was an all-hands-on-deck endeavor. Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Soni Harney and Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer Susan Moore took leading roles in coordinating that massive endeavor. In the early going, they hosted weekly phone calls with as many as 200 bank staffers from across the organization so that information and updates could be efficiently and accurately shared. That process went a long way toward keeping everyone on the same page. “It felt like a very united front and a very coordinated effort. We really tried to communicate well and often. Regardless of the line of business— whether you are a retail branch manager or you are a mortgage banker or you are a wealth advisor— our strategy was all the same,” Harney explains. “We’ve got to keep our employees safe, and we’ve also got to keep our customers safe. We all had to play by the same safety rules so that we were not bringing exposure into the workplace and we were also not, potentially, taking virus exposure out to the customers if we were going to meet with them outside bank walls.” The bank worked quickly to ensure that lobbies, which are central spaces where many people may gather at once to conduct business, were both welcoming and safe.

“With all of the uncertainty COVID introduced into our lives, from a wealth management perspective it also created great market turmoil,” says Executive Vice President for Wealth Management and Corporate Communications Greg Turner. “What we try to do with our customers is have an individual relationship based on creating a plan that’s specific to them and their needs. And so not forgetting the fact that there is all this craziness with COVID and wanting to ensure we respected all of the health related issues, there was a lot of market volatility in March. The approach I took was, let’s reach out as frequently as we can to our customers— number one to ask, ‘Are you okay?’ and number two to ask, ‘Do you have any questions about what’s going on with the market volatility?’” It was immediately clear to Turner and the wealth management staff how much their customers appreciated this personal approach and genuine interest in their wellbeing. “What was really interesting was that 10 percent of those conversations were about the market and 90 percent were about touching base with people and finding out how they were doing,” Turner says. “That was one of the really gratifying things that came out of 2020 in my mind. It was so much beyond your portfolio and your statement. It became about how people were doing. We strengthened our relationships in a really personal way.” It is no small feat for an organization with staff and facilities in five states to coordinate a response to an unprecedented event that requires quick, decisive, and flexible thinking. But the entire MidWest One team—no matter where they are located or what their job title is—rose to the occasion. “It took everybody. It took everybody. There were leaders at all levels,” Harney says. “That’s what I’m most proud of. People stepped up, and they did it to protect their coworkers and our customers and to make our buildings a safe place to be every day.”

Iowa City teller Sam Ramirez

“Our primary focus was twofold: we wanted to continue to meet our customers’ needs while also ensuring that all of the necessary precautions, per the Centers for Disease Control, were taken so that we could serve our customers in a manner that is safe for those customers and for our employees,” says Executive Vice President for Retail Banking David Lindstrom. Those precautions included requiring social distancing, installing sneeze guards at the teller line and at desks, maintaining a high level of cleanliness in public spaces, providing hand sanitizer, reserving the first hour of each business day for customers at high risk, and requiring masks for anyone working behind the teller line as well as for all bank employees who were not alone in a personal work space.

“We asked our employees to look out for each other and to make sure that we were creating as safe of a work environment as we could,” Lindstrom says. In March and November, creating a safe work environment meant taking the more aggressive step of closing the lobbies and conducting business only by appointment or via the bank’s drive-thru lanes. Even when the lobbies were open, customers were encouraged to use the drive-thru option to limit personal contact. “One of our key operating principles is working as one team,” says Lindstrom. “We really did a nice job with that. We definitely learned how to be well organized in our response to challenges. You want to make sure that calm, rational thinking prevails. It’s easy to get swept up in something like this.”

18 MidWest One Financial Group, Inc. 2020 Annual Report

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