The Illusion Of Working For Big & Strong Bank In Nigeria, By Anayo Nwosu

Very earlier in my career, while working for one of the nation’s finest banks, I had a boss, a general manager, who held in contempt other banks ranked small or struggling and would advise us, his subordinates, to count ourselves lucky to be working for the best bank in country.
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Also, the managing director of the bank would at any given opportunity, enjoin us, his employees that we were carefully chosen and were privileged bankers for the mere fact that we were staff of his bank.

Like a controlled robots, almost all the staff were afflicted with this arrogance and a feeling of bigness of “our” bank. Some marketing people would take it to another level when they talk down their mates in other banks during syndication meetings or at customers’ place.

With benefit of experience, I pity staff of today’s strong, efficient and well-paying banks who have been so brainwashed to share the enthusiasm of their paymasters.
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Unbeknownst to a illusioned bank staff, their existential reality is being poisoned and their vision blurred by the vacuous deceit by bank owners. Some of the warped staff dream of succeeding the owner-managing director.

I have been a victim of owner-induced arrogance and have come to pity some of my professional colleagues who fail to realize that they are simply like old layers working in bank owner’s poultry.

The old layer has a tenured existence in its owner’s poultry.

As a chicken, once your egg laying capacity drops by virtue of age, accident, economic twist or cheer dislike by new poultry supervisor, you would be lucky if the poultry owner does not eat you by himself.

A smart bank worker should realize that he is only but a labour which is in the lower rung of factors of production. The owners of your bank are known as entrepreneurs. You work for them and are at their mercy. This is irrespective of your position.
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You may be a junior, senior or general old layer in your bank or poultry. At one point or the other, you must be laid off for new, vibrant and more productive chicks who will become the new performing egg layers.

As a labour or labourer that you are, you are only entitled to wages or salaries in the quantity that would make you stage and work for the owners. The allowances and the profit bonus are meant to make you forget that your are in prison.

The car, mortgage, dressing allowance and all those goodies you are given are carefully designed to enhance the corporate image of the bank and to attack the best of old layers or workers.

A foolish banker would be soaked in the illusion of a well paying job and would forget to save for the rainy day which will surely come.

Some bankers but keeping squandering the income from his servitude.
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There numerous non-circumspective bankers, who in anticipation of next pay largesse would rent and in expensive apartments, shop and do regular vacation abroad, wear gold, diamonds and apparels Bill Gate or Mark Zuckerberg consider expensive. They think that the income tap would continue to run ad infinitum.

Start a conversation with senior management staff of banks that have just been disengaged and see how bitter they are about their former organization. Most aggrieved amongst them are those that worked in the operations departments, who were detached from interfacing with customers.

While the younger ones adjust more easily, the senior ex-bankers sing like broken records enumerating how they were used by bank owners and dumped when they needed them most. They would narrate how they were not allowed to access their computer systems or their offices after being told that their services were no longer needed. These seniors forget easily that they had in time past gleefully helped the bank’s Management the now blame to treat numerous juniors the same way.

My dear young banker, do not be deceived by the rhetorics and the deceitful feeling stoked by your management that you are a part owner of the bank.

It is not true.

You are just an employee, a labour and a factor of production.

Your current pay package is your real worth and is a motivation or inducement to remain at your duty post. It serves to make you feel happy, deliver results at current your current position.

Your continued retention in a bank is as a result of the reality that you either doing well or that your replacement who could do better than you have not been identified.

As an employee of a bank, you must always ensure that you package yourself to appear skilled, performing, useful and usable.
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Get all the required skill sets needed for your role and ensure that your are the best in your area. If you think that you are exceptionally good, find a way of planting in the mind of your management that you might be headhunted by competition.

That word “loyalty” means two things. One is “continued slavery to your employer without growing the gut to leave until you are sacked” and the other is “being steadfast to your goals in life”. But you must be very professional in staying or leaving. In other words, be loyal to that plan that can optimize what you receive a rewards as a labourer before you can work no more.

If your bank believes that you are so good, they will promote you and price you out of the market. They would give you incentives as men do when they are fighting off competition around a beautiful girl they crave for.

Enjoy it while it lasts knowing full well that like an old layer, you have an exit date with your employer.

If you feel that you are so good and that you are not being appreciated or promoted, float your skills in the market and move to another bank or industry. The winner of a rat race is still a rat. The best bank to you should be the one that meets your needs and expectations. Let the investors or bank customers worry about ratings.

Have you wondered why a general manager in a top bank would quickly accept an executive directorship post in a bank considered average? It is for career progression. You need to change bank to attain your career advancement goals faster.
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I re-emphasize that the best bank to a smart bank employee is that one that promotes him/her and rewards his/her efforts; not the one that is best in name but poor in enhancing your earnings and net worth.

My dear young banker, one of the methods to achieve greatness in banking known only to smart few is to be very mobile. Always attend interviews, change jobs and stay longest in the bank that offers you the best in terms of promotion and other conditions of service regarded as “hygiene factors”.

When I see some bankers complain about lack of promotion or disproportionate pay considering the volume of work they do, I pity them.

Promotions, profit bonuses and salary increases are privileges and not a right.

In words of Jesus in Matthew 20:14-15 while justifying the act of an employer assuming, reprimanded the expectant employees who thought that they should have earned higher than the contracted pay saying “take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

So, my banker friends, receive sense and evaluate your current position and wean yourself of the illusion of a partaker of the entitlement of the bank owners. Recognize the fact that you are a just labourer. Hone your skills, determine your worth, float your  availability in the market and only work for a deserving entrepreneur.

Also, every banker should save most of what he/she earns.

As a banker, you should invest wisely because your fate is not different from that of the old layer in a poultry farm.

You may be asked to go earlier than you plan.

And at that time, it would be too late and you may never recover from the shock. script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js">