Financial wellness is at the core of everything we do. Every interaction a teller has with a client is an opportunity to help them on their financial wellness journey, provide solutions to make their lives easier and meet their financial needs.
Our tellers are the face of Key, welcoming and supporting clients as they work toward their financial goals. The teller assists clients with account transactions and servicing needs. Over time, tellers develop relationships with our clients and work on their behalf to ensure that the financial products they use are the best fit for their goals. Since our branch teammates work together to be a full-service solution for our clients, tellers gain exposure to banking products and services knowledge, clients and internal business partners. Often, this gives tellers substantial opportunities for professional growth and career mobility at Key.
Related Backgrounds
- Retail sales
- Customer service
- Hospitality
Core Competencies
- Client care experience and a passion to drive towards results
- Strong attention to detail
- Ability to communicate effectively, develop relationships and easily summarize complex concepts
We offer a wide range of Teller opportunities across our 1,100+ full-service branches.
Yeah, so my role as a Branch Manager, I am the coach. I'm the one that's really leading the team to the charge. You know, I'm constantly on the forefront trying to get my team to where they need to be. A typical day, I'm not sure if there's even such a thing. You know, we have our daily structure. Everybody gets together in the morning. We talk about what we're going to do. We set our goals and our strategic priorities, but once the doors open it's all about the customers and the clients that are coming in. So our day is really about helping them. It could be a variety of different things that we encounter throughout the day. The biggest thing is just rolling with it, knowing that you're staying on top of it and doing what's right for our clients.
The type of person that thrives on my team is somebody that's constantly on the move, they can handle change, they're excited for change. The person that really thrives is the person that can manage their calendar. They can stay up-to-date. They know what's coming and they can roll with the punches. What sets the Branch Manager role apart is that we really take a holistic approach to our small business clients. Instead of just kind of taking their order and giving them what they ask for, we really want to know how the business works and we want to support them in that business growth. Especially now with the pandemic businesses are coming, there's PPP loans, there's SBA opportunities for them. We want to help them navigate that and be the point person for their small business wellness.
Day in the life of a Branch Manager
A Branch Manager focuses on branch staffing, performance coaching and branch operations. As a leader, a Branch Manager motivates their team to provide excellent client service in all interactions, analyze clients’ needs, and recommend financial solutions that help Key clients achieve confidence in their financial wellness and achieve their goals.
Personal Bankers at Key are so important to our strategy and to our success. Personal bankers have the opportunity to meet with our clients throughout the day. And typically they start the day with some prescheduled appointments, but also, they also take care of clients that walk through the door, right? And it's very important that we find out what brings a client in. We assist them, of course, with that need, but these days, clients are not coming in branches as often, right? We know that certainly more and more banking is happening digitally. And so those are huge opportunities for us to really connect with our clients, understand what else is going on in their lives, learn about some progress that they've made on their financial journey, and see what else we can do to assist them.
My favorite thing of my job is building relationships, being able to help our clients to buy their first home, being able to help with credit, being able to open their first account, save for the future.
What we're looking for in Personal Bankers are people that want to be part of a team, right? And they understand that to be successful requires strong teamwork. We're also looking for people that want to make a difference and truly want to make an impact with our clients and they have that opportunity literally every single day. We're looking for people that have the heart of a teacher, as I like to say, that really want to understand what's going on in the client's life, have the ability to ask questions, the ability to listen, but then the ability to deliver advice and to, in some cases, educate our clients and that's why this job is so rewarding.
No, you absolutely do not need financial service experience to succeed in the Personal Banker role. As long as you're a people person and you can connect and really dig deep in those conversations, you're going to succeed. We can teach you the skills that you need to be successful; as long as you have the competencies such as people management and communication, you'll do just fine.
The Personal Banker role
Personal bankers at Key are so crucial to our strategy and our success. They have the opportunity to connect with our clients from transactional needs to guiding clients on their financial journey.
Well, the personal banker role has evolved tremendously over the last several years. If you think about what's happening in banking more broadly, clients are coming in less and less to the branches as a result of being able to do more and more of their banking transactionally, at least through our digital channels. So the role of the banker has really become more and more important, because we're not seeing our clients face-to-face as often as we used to. So it's very important that our bankers, of course, understand what brought a client in that day, take care of that need, address that need, but then it's about figuring out what else is going on, right? Learning about what else is happening in their life, asking a broader set of questions. And that's where we help them with our Financial Wellness Review experience, which is a digitally-assisted, interactive conversation that allows our bankers to go beyond, to truly understand what's happening in that family's life, upcoming financial needs, how they're progressing against their financial goals, what challenges or fears that they might have, and then to be able to deliver personalized recommendations and advice.
Yeah, skills that we're looking for in personal bankers are skills to be able to wanna help people, right? And be able to connect with clients, be able to ask questions, listen, leverage the tools and resources that Key provides our personal bankers. We're not looking for people to be financial experts across all financial products or services by any means, what we're looking for is the ability to have a conversation, to lead a conversation, and to be able to understand how we can help improve that client's financial life.
How the Personal Banker role has evolved
The Personal Banker role has evolved tremendously. Clients are coming into the branches less, so our bankers must understand what brought a client in that day and learn about what else is happening in their life, asking a broader set of questions.
So traditionally, banks have had two major job families in a branch; they have the tellers, and then the sales associates or bankers on the other side. And what we've pivoted to with our Financial Wellness Consultant model is a new role. And it's a very exciting role because it mixes a little bit of both, right? It mixes the opportunity to take care of finance transactions, which obviously, that's what brings most people into the bank, to be able to complete a transaction. But then while we're handling that transaction to be able to see what else is going on in that client's life, right? And oftentimes, our financial wellness consultants are able to right then and there transition into completing a financial wellness review with our clients. So it's a tremendous role in the sense that you're working with a lot of clients throughout the day.
I actually had a client who came into the branch. I've met her for the first time, and I asked her about her experience with KeyBank. She then went into saying that her mother had passed away and she was struggling getting the funds from her mother's account. I remember she like gave me a huge hug after it was all done. It was just, I can only understand only a little part of what she went through, losing a mother and then having to deal with the struggles of all of the mayhem that comes with death and the court systems and everything like that. I just remember at the end of it, we were all crying. We all were giving each other hugs, and it was the most rewarding experience I've ever had with any client, and just knowing that I was able to help her made me feel like I was meant for this and I was actually doing something to better someone else. And all it took was collectively getting with other teammates and actually just finding the answer.
The Financial Wellness Consultant role
The type of person best suited and most successful as a Financial Wellness Consultant likes working in a team environment that is motivated to impact, isn't afraid of sales, and is naturally curious.
What I like about the work that I do is that I really get to make a difference in our clients' lives. What's really unique, is banking is something that's universal for everybody. You really get to make that difference, you help them set those goals and you help your clients achieve those goals.
But what was special about my onboarding, I've never been with a company that's actually giving you a welcome kit. So that was very... it brought tears to my eyes and it was just a great feeling to know that I was coming into like a family myself, and I made the right decision. Our team environment here in the branch, we really do bounce ideas off of each other, which is very... it feels really good especially if you're stuck on something, or need a different avenue or different thought process on how to basically achieve a goal. I know we partner a lot with our partners outside, like our mortgage, our Key investment services, things of that nature. So we refer a lot of clients to outside and in return we do get that referral back. So it's very helpful in production and also just team camaraderie.
When I first started here, I didn't have any experience. So I was like, "Okay, what can I do to be successful at this job?" Well, we have numerous practices, we have coaching, we have mentors, we have different training programs, they literally will walk you through it and follow through so you can be an expert. So when we say that we collaborate together as a team, we mean it. Like we are on the same level, you're my manager, but at the same time, we are co-workers, we're trying to do what's right for the clients. There's no title involved, like we are together to make their community better.
So what I love about my job, is just the fact that I get to engage with the clients that I serve every day, and I'm able to see how the conversations that we're having from time to time impact them and promote that financial wellness that we're looking to build with them here at Key.
Why Key (retail banking)
You can make a difference in your community by helping clients achieve their goals. It's a collaborative team environment, and Key will provide you the training and tools to be successful.
Well, we're fortunate at Key, we've seen all kinds of different backgrounds that our bankers have brought to Key and have made them successful as personal bankers. We've had people from the hospitality industry. We've had people from education backgrounds and certainly from financial services. We've also had people that have never had any banking or financial services experience at all that have been successful as personal bankers. The critical aspect is that they have that desire to help and assist clients. They have the desire to want to be a part of a team. They understand that this is a sales role and that is not something that intimidates them, but it's something that they find motivating. And that they're willing to listen and ask questions. And again, we have all kinds of support mechanisms in place and resources and tools to allow our personal bankers to be able to provide that financial advice despite not having the personal background in finance that they might not have.
My advice to anyone who is interviewing for retail banking, just be honest, and be yourself, really. Being able to be upfront in the beginning. For example, I got with my manager and when I spoke to her during my interview process, she asked me what was my career goals? My career goals was to take on leadership and to one day be a Branch Manager. And within two years I've been accepted into what's called our LEAP Program. It's our Leadership Excellence Acceleration Program. And I'm currently enrolled in it and thanks to the help of just being open and honest and being upfront, my manager was able to nominate me.
What made me join Key was the fact that I was able to see a clear career path from where I was at and where I wanted to go. So I knew that Key was invested in that Licensed Relationship Manager position and that they are helping those bankers that want to be Licensed Relationship Managers grow in that area. And also, you know, I'm able to continue my journey and hopefully at someday become a Financial Advisor. So there's a very clear career path from beginning to end, onboarding till to now. So I would say with the leadership that I've worked closely with, that they are in constant communication with me, making sure that I am on that career path that I want to be on. So they have made it clear how my work impacts the branch and that motivates me to dive deeper with the clients and to continue that career path with Key. So that's what I love is that our leaders are in constant communication with us making sure that we are where we want to be now so that we can be where we want to be tomorrow.
Career opportunities in retail banking at Key
Every day you'll learn banking from a transactional standpoint to a sales aspect and deliver real client impact. You'll see lots of different experiences and interactions, and each of those interactions represents an opportunity. There are dynamic roles for individuals who thrive in a highly interactive environment and love working with clients.
