The Garland Group is a rather small operation, consisting of only 14 employees. You’d think that with just more than a baker’s dozen of people on board, we’d do “business as usual,” but we’re actually doing the very opposite. Our CEO, Brad Garland, has a knack for pushing the envelope a bit, especially in this industry. He’s always looking for ways for us to be better than we were the day before, and do things more helpful and meaningful for ourselves and our industry.

Enacting ROWE
As you’re probably aware, our company started down the ROWE path at the end of 2008. The basic idea is that all employees work when they want, where they want, which is a scary concept for most businesses. We’re all able to get our work done without having to drive into the office everyday. Even for our audit process, we don’t just confine ourselves to an empty office within a bank, but allow our consultants to work from their hotel rooms if they like. It’s much less about where the work is done and much more about the quality of work provided (but don’t worry, we’re still very conscientious about security while performing audits).

e-Review Process
One thing Brad started at The Garland Group is the e-Review Process, which allows several of our consultants to work from our home office instead of having an entire crew on site. The LifeSize technology we use for our e-Review Process provides great benefits for all parties involved because our employees get to stay in town, and it saves our clients money by not having to pay for travel expenses (hotel stays, flights, meals, etc) for so many consultants. Performing an audit remotely is still a new concept for many banks, but one we all believe has huge potential to change the audit process into a more stream-lined, inexpensive alternative for FIs.

Continuous Compliance
In one of our latest blog entires, Henry Garland mentioned that we’re working to move towards a continuous compliance audit process. We identified that the gaps between audits put banks at risk and make things very difficult for the few people in charge of preparing for the audit process. With our continuous compliance idea, your bank would be monitored throughout the year, making the audit process much less of a hassle and helps maintain your bank’s security. We’re currently working out the logistics of pursuing continuous compliance, but we’ll be sharing more about it soon on our website.

With all these big ideas of ours in action, we’re hoping to make significant strides within the financial industry. As you can see, innovation has nothing to do with the size of your business but more the will and determination to provide solid solutions.

If you would like any further information regarding any of the services mentioned in this post, please feel free to contact us at info@thegarlandgroup.net.

Here at The Garland Group, we are a results-oriented company. We don’t put stock into standard work week hours. A Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) focuses on getting it done rather than putting in the time. It’s a really fantastic way to work, but sometimes it blurs the traditional distinctions between work life and home life.

I am a software developer, and I work for The Garland Group out of my home office in Minnesota. Being able to see my office from my refrigerator further blurs the distinction when I am grabbing a late night snack and am reminded of some programming problem I need to solve.

An always present work environment in the home is really cool, but sometimes the work life fuel tank runs low and doesn’t charge up as much since there is no getting away from the office. I have a few things I do to charge up that fuel tank. My favorite is motorcycling.

This afternoon I was pondering this fantastic metaphor about the empty tank and how it would make a truly profound blog post. so I decided I should go for a ride and fuel up my metaphorical tank before writing about it. So I put on my leather, gloves, boots and helmet and invited a young friend with a moped to trail along with me.

I was feeling charged up and refreshed when we got half way up Stadium Road – the biggest hill in town – where my friend’s moped ran out of gas. A few minutes later I found myself in full riding gear – leather, gloves, boots, helmet – pushing a little moped through traffic up a steep hill while trying to work out in my head how this was going to support my work life metaphor.

How do you fill up your tank?