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My sixth-rotation at the beginning of the year was my highlight: thanks to the project rotation, I ended up in the assistant office of the board members.

Going back to December 2019, I had my first meeting with the assistants of the board members. We shared our backgrounds, hobbies and also our development in the company. We also shared expectations, which was for me the understanding of decision-making process of the management, the level of information and my ability to act, react and respond to an ever-changing environment. I was impressed with both of their experiences and their humble and respectful at the same time easy going personalities.

When I started in January, I soon realized, this is a personality trait of all members of the team. After a quick onboarding, I was shifting the gears and helped both of the assistants with their daily business which is often ad-hoc tasks and the board meeting management.

Wallstreet in the 80s – luckily not

In one of my first meetings mid of January with one of the members, he asked me if I imagined the work in the assistance office as I experienced in the first few days. I looked at him and answered, that being honest, I thought it would be more like the Wallstreet in the 80‘s. As a more intense and critical atmosphere, which isn’t the case, actually it is fulfilling and despite the workload, it’s really fun. He replied, he is really happy that we still have fun and thankfully, we are acting today in a much more responsible manner with our business ethics and leadership principles.

This is true: I experienced the board members as always joyful and pleasant in every interaction. Since then, a lot of impactful decisions have been made that influenced our organizational strategy. All of which, I had tangible contribution with my work and even more acknowledgeable – I could look over the shoulders of the decision makers and the decision making process. My area of responsibility has increased and seamlessly, I was operating on the same level with all the other colleagues. I realized that every member is hard-working towards one goal: taking the right decisions to satisfy our customers. The customers are everyone – from our banking customers, projects teams, regulatory units as well as our colleagues in the departments. 

How COVID-19 changed daily business

However, as a service-driven company, the human-centered approach requires ourselves to adapt much faster in a given situation. Particularly experienced with the impact of Covid-19. A sudden crisis that changed not only our work-environment, but also our core behavior how we interact and exchange with each other. On top it was also my first crisis in my work experience. Highlighting this time, I learned how important communication and transparency is. Especially, in dealing with the unknown and making decisions based on limited amount of information. I experienced the team settled by leveraging the knowledge of the experts and tackling the crisis step by step with the right balance of risk and progress. Despite the crisis, meeting regulatory requirements still has to be continued. The sudden shift to mobile working has led to crisis meetings managed remotely and board of management meetings digitally. Surprisingly, the new process has been accepted immediately and there weren’t many differences to notice in terms of the traditional held board meetings in the office. 

Definitely the necessary accelerator for traditional and non-tech companies to enhance digitalisation in their business processes as well as organisational habits.