As a historic winter storm blasted much of the country, Regions’ service area across the South, Midwest and Texas was heavily impacted, at one point leaving more than 900 branches either closed or experiencing altered hours.
But before the first sight of sleet or snow, Regions’ Weather Response Team and members of district leadership in impacted markets were hard at work.
“We activated our weather response team over the President’s Day holiday weekend, pulling groups together from Corporate Security, Corporate Real Estate, Consumer Support, our Technology and Operations partners, as well as Human Resources,” said Kyle Puchta, incident response manager for Regions Corporate Security. “As a team, our efforts were to support the markets and district leadership so they could make closing and opening decisions for their branches and make sure their associates and customers were safe.”
Each one of these mission critical associates is what keeps Regions up and running, no matter what is happening.
Kyle Puchta, incident response manager for Regions Corporate Security
Puchta says the team got ahead of the weather by monitoring the unfolding situation and assessing the potential impact to customers, facilities and associates.
And when the storm rolled in, the bank was ready. Operations must always support business functions, despite uncontrollable factors like inclement weather. This is why nearly 70 mission critical associates spent the night away from home and in a hotel close to work in order to support Regions’ mission critical duties and facilities.
“It’s definitely a group effort,” Puchta said. “Each one of these mission critical associates is what keeps Regions up and running, no matter what is happening.”
These associates are responsible for such duties as the Network Operations Center (NOC) – an “always on” department overseeing mission critical monitoring and mainframe operations. Other mission critical associates must be on site to do those jobs that can’t be delayed despite the weather – such as video banking, and loan and mortgage imaging. Corporate Security provides transportation for these associates. And Corporate Real Estate stays busy preparing the facilities and managing food service for those “spending the night” at work.
“This is a great example of teamwork within Regions – we bring numerous groups from throughout the bank that normally may not have much interaction with each other, but in a response effort like this, everyone gives up their weekends, their nights, and early mornings so that we can make sure everyone is working for one goal and that is the safety of our associates and that we can take care of our customers,” Puchta said.