2020 COMMUNITY BANKS TO WORK FOR BEST FOSTERING INNOVATION Across departments, employees say their community bank encourages innovation. Our bank's work environment ... Encourages innovative thinking, policies and practices Encourages employees to act and think independently Accommodates different work styles Customer service 86 86 82 91% SAY THEIR BANK ACTIVELY ENCOURAGES DIVERSITY AMONG STAFF. Gender Men 26.7% Women 71.5% Prefer not to say (1.8%) Age 56+ 25.1% 25-35 21.8% 46-55 22.7% 36-45 22.6% 18-24 7.8% Finance 92 90 90 HR 98 92 87 IT 92 87 89 SUPPORTING DIVERSITY More than 9 in 10 agree their community bank is inclusive. 93% SAY THEIR BANK SUPPORTS A DIVERSE CUSTOMER BASE. SNAPSHOT OF RESPONDENTS Employment level (%) Executive Director Manager Specialist/Non-managerial Experienced Entry level 6.3 1.9 22.1 21.5 35.8 12.4 Lending 90 91 90 Marketing & Sales 95 92 88 Strongly agree or agree (%) Operations 89 88 86 Production 90 92 94 Other 91 90 89 METHODOLOGY Each self-nominated community bank's full-time employees were asked to complete a workplace survey hosted by Avannis, an independent research agency. Access to the survey was protected by a PIN unique to each bank. Only community banks that met a minimum of 40% employee participation were eligible for the recognition. The survey consisted of 42 scaled responses where positive responses earned the most points. For example, a bank whose employees selected only the most positive responses would achieve an index score of 100%. Eligible banks were then sorted into five asset classes. The community bank with the highest index score in each asset class was chosen as the winner in that class. 46 Q ICBA Independent Banker Q December 2020