You heard about the pregnant bank teller, a few weeks ago, who lost the twins she was carrying after being shot during a holdup?
HR Wench wrote a thoughtful post about the situation and how the bank’s branch had been robbed five times since 2007. Questions:
- What role does the bank have in protecting its employees?
- Is it reasonable to expect an employer to guarantee a certain level of safety when you work in a bank?
- What did Huntington Bancshares (the employer) do to protect its employees after robbery #1?
- How about robbery #4?
HR Wench wanted answers, and so did I! I sent a note to the CEO of the bank, Mr. Tom Hoaglin, but I was only given an option to send an email consisting of 250 words. That’s not much space, so I sent a brief and simple request for more information related to bank safety. This was the response.
Dear Ms. Ruettimann:
Thank you for your email to Tom Hoaglin, CEO of The Huntington National Bank. He has asked that is respond on his behalf.
Thank you for sharing your concern for Katherin Shuffield. We continue to be deeply saddened for what Katherin and her family are going through. This was a senseless and vicious act.
The safety of our associates and customers are of our utmost concern. With that in mind, we are limited in what we can share about our security procedures. At the same time, Huntington has pledge full support of the Indianapolis Police and FBI in identifying and convicting the responsible party.
Sincerely,
Marcie Heiser
Research Specialist, Senior
Executive Escalation
The Huntington National Bank
614-331-9174
1-800-480-2265, extension 19174
fax 614-331-8496
Wow. At first, I was compelled to blog about the sterile & simplistic response to a very serious set of employment issues; however, I’m more outraged to learn that I received the same exact response letter (typos & all) that was sent to HR Wench!
(Apparently, Huntington Bancshares doesn’t employ a Director of Communications or understand how the internet works.)
Stay tuned for more details, and please keep Katherin Shuffield in your thoughts. Of course, go visit HR Wench’s blog for breaking news on this story & other HR stuff. She’s awesome.
In defense of boilerplate templates from a customer service gal: think about receiving over 200 emails a day on the same topic - you might have a boilerplate response too.
Yes, even a professional customer service person makes a mistake in spelling or grammar in her canned response every now and then. I was just horrified yesterday to find a mistake in an email I’ve probably sent over 150 times. Sorry. We’re human…and a little overwhelmed.
If you want a response from Mr. CEO - try picking up a pen and writing a letter. I usually give much better responses via snail mail then via email.
Cristin, thanks for stopping by. I love customer service professionals and hired my fair share of them — and staffed a logistics department — in the 90s. I know it’s a tough job, but I don’t think the woman who wrote me this note is in Customer Service. I think she’s a communications writer assigned to respond to executive email messages. I’ve hired those people, too.
I might not be the best writer, so let me try this again: I’m annoyed that the response from Huntington doesn’t address anything substantive. I know that the bank & its employees must be devastated by the developments; however, what (if anything?) did they do to prevent this tragedy? What, if anything, should they have done?
The tone of the letter annoys me. Why does everything in Corporate America need to be so sanitized? (Answer: lawyers.)
So maybe my outrage should be addressed to the legal department that reviewed this boilerplate letter before it was sent to me (& others).
Also, I haven’t written a snail mail letter in the 21st century. I’m not sure why my concerns would be escalated if I used the postal services vs. the interwebs, but I’ll keep that in mind.
Thanks for your support!