Garland Group Blog

New Chapter: Garland Group in 2012

Brad January 17th, 2012 0 Comments

For 2012, we wanted this year to be one for the books. We wanted this year to be the catalyst for more positive, impactful years to come. So to do that, we knew we had to think big. We had to think differently than the status quo. So what did we come up with as our goals for 2012? Here’s a few:

1) Impact before Growth - I saw a quote recently talking about the definition of success and immediately thought, “Heck yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!”. It said something like this:

“Success isn’t only about making money, it’s about impacting people’s lives.”

So this year we are making it a company goal to have even deeper relationships with our clients and finding ways to help/connect/grow/empower them in the things that they do, either personally or professionally. We also think we have an opportunity to co-create something with them for their customers as well. We will be talking more about this in future posts…

2) Welcome to the ROC - With the success of our Continuous Compliance services we have had to retool the way we work. So we have decided to build two separate but highly integrated divisions within our company. One is the ROC (Risk Operations Center) and the other is the Field. Each will work hand-in-hand to ensure that our clients are able to receive the ultimate proactive compliance experience possible.

3) Consultants becoming Account Managers - In our effort to have a higher impact with our clients we felt we needed to be even closer to them and so we’re instituting Account Managers for our list of clients. This ensures that those clients have to only go to one place with questions or anything at all. We want our service to feel like a hotel concierge service where they feel catered to, even pampered!

These are our goals and our challenges but with the people we have in place I have no doubt we can do it. I sat down with the team recently and went through these goals. Here are some comments I received from them afterwards:

“I left our ‘Vision for 2012′ meeting with more motivation and excitement since I first started at Garland Group. Changes we are making to our workflow will really improve our interaction and reporting to clients, while internal incentives provide real opportunity for everyone at Garland Group to succeed professionally and personally.” – Heath Stanley

“I believe as the Garland Group moves forward in 2012, our goal has always been to meet the needs of our clients with knowledge and efficiency. Now, internally Garland Group is also directing that same philosophy with the creation of Operation and Field divisions, all in an effort to assist and impact our clients on a positive, efficient basis. I’m very excited to be part of the Garland Group at this time.” – Dan Nerada

I’m thrilled to have a team that gets as excited about helping others as I do. Here’s to a great new year!

January Webinar – Managing Compliance in 2012 Panel

Gaye Connell January 9th, 2012 0 Comments

Looks like our new panel format webinar was a success!  We received good feedback and many of you interacted with our panelist during the discussion of how to “Manage Compliance in 2012″.  Thank you to our 3 panelist….Heath Stanley, Brad Garland and Henry Garland for sharing your  knowledge of industry trends and helping Financial Institutions get educated .  For those of you who missed the webinar, here is some of the info we covered:

  • Biggest Threats to Banks in 2012
  • Hot Topics for Examiners
  • Enterprise Risk Management for Community Bankers
  • Senior Management Compliance Responsibilities

For a PDF copy of this presentation –> Managing Compliance Panel

For those that missed the webinar, please check out the recording below.  If you can’t see the video below…Link to video here!

The Gift of Time

Brad December 19th, 2011 2 Comments

The holidays are a special time of the year. As a kid, I always enjoyed the presents and food but as I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to appreciate just the time off to spend with those I cherish. As I normally do this time of year, I reflected back on the year its been and just how hard our employees have worked for us and for you, our clients. There are not enough succinct words to express how appreciative I am of what they do for Garland Group each week. They care so much about building great relationships and offering high quality of work – that’s the REAL business that we’re in….the ‘Peace of mind’ business.

Money or Time?

So, while in reflection, I decided I wanted to figure out a way to give back to the employees. In the past, we’ve done Christmas bonuses and the standard Christmas party but I wanted to do something a bit more for their efforts. So this year I’ve decided to give them the gift of time. There’s nothing more valuable in my opinion so we are shutting down all Garland Group operations from Friday 12/23 until Tuesday 1/3. That means no emails, no phone calls, no trips to the office…..nothing. Go enjoy the time. This is outside of their standard vacation policy, of course, and I wanted them to use this time to be with their families because family is so important to me.

I’m also requesting that the staff put this vacation message up:

“If you have any major issues during this time, Brad Garland asked that you please send your requests directly to him at brad@thegarlandgroup.net and he’ll respond ASAP otherwise I’ll be back on January 3rd. Thanks and have a blessed holiday season!”

I was excited to share this with them and more excited to hear what they will be doing with their time off (even if it was nothing at all). We all need that from time to time, right? Again, thanks to all that work at the Garland Group and those of you that we work for, we appreciate you all, and wish you a great holiday season!

December Webinar – Complaint Management Best Practices

Gaye Connell December 5th, 2011 0 Comments

Thank you to Becky Frederick from Deluxe Corp. for an excellent webinar presenting Best Practices in Complaint Management.  This topic seems to be on everyone’s hot topic list ….here is some of the info she covered:

  • Current regulatory landscape review of Compliant Management
  • How to build your complaint processes and program
  • What role UDAAP plays a part in the complaint space
  • The role of social media
  • 10 point readiness checklist for your own successful complaint management program

For a PDF copy of this presentation –> Complaint Management Best Practices

For those that missed the webinar, please check out the recording below.  If you can’t see the video below…Link to video here!