LEADERS& LEGACIES

JeffLedoux,FormerPresident/CEOHoustonEngineering

SteveBurian,CEO BurianAssociates

Dr TodSchaffer,CEOSanfordHealth

TrentSorbe,FounderandPresidentatCentralPayments

JodiDuncan,PresidentFlintGroup

ToddBerning, PresidentandOwneratEPICCompanies

DanielConrad,PresidentandCEOatBCBSND

GarthRydland,PresidentandCEOat ValleySeniorLiving

RonMielke,FormerCEOatTSPInc.

Starion Bank got its start in 1969 when Frank and JoAndrea Larson purchased the First National Bank of Oakes in Oakes, North Dakota. Over the next 50 years, they grew the business and now operate 16 Starion Bank branches in North Dakota and Wisconsin. Starion Bank employs more than 230 people, which includes employees in the cities serves as well as some remote employees in other locations.

Brenna Grossbauer Chief Human Resources Officer

What has been the biggest challenge for the company over the past two years of the pandemic related to its workforce? How has it met those challenges?

Throughout the last two years, one of our biggest challenges has been providing the friendly, personalized service we’re known for while keeping our employees and customers as safe as possible. We supplied PPE to all employees in order to help them protect their health if they were in a bank branch or visiting customers outside the branch. We also embraced telecommuting with 120 of our employees set up to work remotely at the onset of the pandemic and nearly 90 of our employees continuing to work remotely to this day.

We also invested in expanding our virtual support, allowing both personal and business customers to more easily bank via videoconference, phone, chat and online so that they would have all their banking needs met without having to travel to a branch.

Are employees shouldering more responsibility than they did before the pandemic?

The pandemic did affect customer-facing bankers in a big way. Many of our business bankers switched their meetings to Zoom, Teams and other software. This helped them stay in touch with customers and get everything done that used to happen during regular, in-person client visits.

In our retail segment, Universal Bankers handled additional drive-through traffic when our lobbies were closed. The customer traffic did not necessarily change, but the ways in which we served them did.

What does the company offer or do to make sure employees feel valued and appreciated, especially if they are taking on more responsibility?

Starion Bank has always been respectful of our employees’ time and obligations outside the office and encourage them to take time away from work in order to spend time with family, experience the world, and recharge. We offer a generous PTO plan, remote work options for some positions, spot awards, “Shout Out” and “Starion Awards” recognition programs, and a variety of employee gifts throughout the year.

What are some of the best methods or tools you have found to attract job applicants?

We make use of digital channels and websites that attract more applicants. Also, because our employees enjoy working here, they often speak to their friends, family and coworkers from previous jobs and urge them to apply.

What does Starion Bank do to make sure a new hire is a good fit for the company?

Starion is thorough in the vetting of new hires to ensure they are a fit for our culture, understand the demands of the banking industry, and are able to meet the high expectations of our customers. We use a variety of pre-hire assessments and have developed a selection process around our core values. We hire people who want to continue learning throughout their career, and work to grow as people and as professionals in their field.

Briefly describe the company’s onboarding process: When new employees come to Starion, they are taken under the wing of their direct supervisor, their team, and are assigned a “buddy.” We utilize defined on-boarding checklists to help new people learn, train and integrate into the Starion culture, and to urge new people to feel safe in proposing new ideas. It is truly a team effort!

Gate City Bank is a $3.1 billion mutual bank founded in 1923. Today it employs more than 770 team members at 43 locations in 22 communities across North Dakota and central Minnesota. Among its many financial services, it serves customers and communities with contributions such as free ATMs, philanthropic giving and BetterLife™ Student Loans that have saved customers millions of dollars in interest.

In what ways has the pandemic impacted job titles and positions at the company?

At Gate City Bank, we have seen significant changes throughout the pandemic and have been working to innovate all roles alongside these changes. For example, many team members are offered a flexible work environment with self-identified hours and the ability to work remotely (or in a hybrid capacity) as their role allows. By remaining innovative, we focus on growth and development and are continuously committed to making a difference for our team members –who make a difference for our customers and communities.

What does the company offer or do to make sure employees feel valued and appreciated, especially if they are taking on more responsibility?

We empower our leaders to recognize teams in ways that each team member prefers. Personalization is incredibly important and helps our teams feel valued. For example, some teams may enjoy connecting at a lunch outing while others would rather have extra paid time off. We also celebrate big wins with larger Bank-wide gifts. Recently, we celebrated being named No. 2 in the U.S. on Forbes’ 2022 list of World’s Best Banks. We encouraged teams to celebrate this huge feat and send photos of their team celebrations to compile a celebration video. It was awesome to see so many team members engaged with each other in various ways! (Heather Ostrowski)

Are there new tools or ways the company approaches the effort to attract new talent?

At Gate City Bank, we’re honored to consistently be recognized as a top place to work with culture and benefits that make working with us exciting and rewarding! With that in mind, we are constantly working to find new ways to appeal to new talent and share our workplace culture. Recently, we’ve expanded our social media outreach by having a Gate City Bank TikTok channel on top of our commonly used social platforms.

While talent can certainly be more difficult to find, we’ve made it a point to use different recruiting platforms or posting sites to connect with various candidates. This includes Handshake for college students, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Ignite, Indeed and Circa (which posts our positions to a variety of diverse community-based organizations). We find Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (DIB) efforts exciting and want to have the most diverse pool of candidates for our organization! (Sam Miranda)

As pertaining to new hires, what skills standout in someone seeking a position with the company?

At Gate City Bank, we are passionate about making a difference, as it is stated in our mission statement – For A Better Way of Life.® We look for team members that are excited to get involved in the community and make an impact with our unlimited volunteer hours. We are looking for people with a passion for customer service and a data-driven, innovative mindset. We truly believe we can train skills, but true talent comes with a drive to be curious, committed and act with a sense of urgency. (Sam Miranda)

What retention efforts does the company make to help employees want to stay long term?

Our benefits include fully paid 12-week maternity leave and fourweek paternity leave, unlimited volunteer time, generous PTO, role-specific differential pay on nights and weekends and a team member incentive program – just to name a few! On top of that, we offer a variety of opportunities for skill- and career-building growth, including a mentorship program. We celebrate every five years of employment with Gate City Bank by a team member receiving a diamond gem. The team member can choose a pendant or a necklace to feature the diamond(s). (We just celebrated a first at the Bank: A team member celebrated her 50th work anniversary – you should have seen her diamonds!)

We also conduct annual team member engagement surveys and focus on taking action based on what we learn from anonymous team member feedback. It is important to make sure our team members feel heard and are comfortable being honest and vulnerable with our leadership team. We are continuously innovating around retention efforts and re-evaluate what is in place, what is or is not working and what needs to be added to retain our great team members every year. (Heather Ostrowski)

What is the most attractive thing about working in the banking industry today and, more specifically, Gate City Bank?

Gate City Bank is celebrating our 100th anniversary in 2023, so it’s safe to say we’ve been making a difference for a while! The Bank is committed to making lives better every day by investing in our team members and the communities we serve. In 2021, we made an impact with more than $2.9 million in philanthropic giving and more than 16,000 team member volunteer hours – all on company time.

Another exciting facet of Gate City Bank is our drive for innovation to enhance experiences across the board for customers.

Similarly, we focus on learning and development to keep us centered on the core of who we are. We have created programs like Reality-Based Leadership, which supports our leadership team with tools for self-reflection, communication and accountability. We also use the DiSC self-assessment tool Bank-wide, which helps us take a deeper dive into understanding ourselves and others to promote improved teamwork and productivity. We are very proud of our variety of programs and resources dedicated to supporting mental health and diversity, inclusion and belonging.

Founded in 1944 in Fargo, Ulteig is an employee-owned engineering/design, program management, technical services and field services firm that operates throughout North America. The company supports a hybrid work environment for its 900-plus employees who work remotely and in 13 offices located in both the US and Canada, including six in Minnesota and the Dakotas.

What has been the biggest challenge for the company over the past two years of the pandemic? How has the company met those challenges?

I would say that the biggest challenge has been working through the starts and stops of potential federal vaccination requirements and decisions related to office utilization and mask wearing. The health and safety of our employees has been our constant num- continued on Page 24