Summertime brings stress to the banking industry as employees are looking for a brief time of rest and recreation, but find that their financial worries never take a holiday. That’s why banks and financial institutions are some of the most prevalent users of Marketplace Chaplains.

Marketplace Chaplains works with numerous bank locations in a variety of cities and states, bringing the care and concern of trained workplace chaplains to help others, and to lessen stress employees face daily.

“Employee retention starts with benefits: competitive compensation, insurance, vacation and retirement are the obvious company-provided benefits,” said Mike Shipman, Chairman and CEO of North Dallas Bank & Trust Company, with several locations in North Texas.

“In addition, North Dallas Bank has been providing for more than 30 years, another benefit that comes in the form of what you might call the “C’s”:  Caring, Compassion, Consideration, Consoling, Counseling, Cheering, and Coaching.  Certainly, some of these are included in our daily interaction with our employees, but there will always be some things that employees prefer not to discuss with their employer.  That is where our partnership with Marketplace Chaplains comes in,” said Shipman.

Some of the banking institutions served by Marketplace Chaplains include: First Southern National Bank in Stanford, Kentucky, Independent Bank in McKinney, Texas, Alliance Bank with various Northeast Texas locations, longtime client Inwood National Bank in the greater Dallas area, and Southside Bank in Tyler, Texas, who has offered the chaplain service in its bank locations for more than two decades.

Because bank employees often deal with customers and fellow co-workers in good times and bad, the work stress level can be very high especially in the so-called carefree summer days. Shipman and others in the financial realm have found Marketplace Chaplains to be an important part of their employee retention strategy.

“Retaining employees is, at best, very difficult….even more so in an improving economy,” Shipman said. “Here at North Dallas Bank, we are accountable to four groups of people:  Customers, Communities, Shareholders and Employees.”

“It is the foundation of our Mission Statement, which includes the phrase, ‘and to provide an environment in which each our employees can excel in a spirit of mutual respect, accountability, creativity and teamwork,”’ continued Shipman.

“In 1992, we made the decision to use the services of Marketplace Chaplains primarily because we felt it was the right thing to do.  We soon discovered it was one of the best decisions we could have possibly made to help our employees and their families in a meaningful way,” said Rogers Pope, Chairman and CEO, Texas Bank & Trust, Longview, Texas.

Today, Marketplace Chaplains has nearly 2,800 chaplains who serve in more than 3,000 service locations in 988 cities and 44 U.S. states, across more than 20 industry types performing dozens of services to employees and their family members.

“Stress can impact every facet of life and helping employees handle stress in the workplace is a key element of a chaplain’s function,” said Richard S. De Witt, President and COO of Marketplace Chaplains. “That’s why workplace chaplains are a vital resource for bank CEOs.”