We are a small mid west community bank that has experienced much loan loss. The bank recently hired a consultant to come in to do an analysis of the bank to make recommendations for change to the board of directors.

Long story short, the consultant met with several employees. This meeting was supposed to be a confidential discussion and the employees were encouraged to be honest and forthright with their observations.

Just found out the consultant was dismissed and the report that was generated from the consultant did not remain confidential. Employees are now being told that they
should not have talked so openly to the consultant by their supervisors. The supervisors are upset. The employees are feeling betrayed.

Do the employees have anything to stand on regarding the breach of privacy and trust?

they shared information with a contractor hired by the bank, about the bank...not sure what breach of privacy claim could be made.

sounds like there was already a lack of trust if the employees knew something was off and didn't bring it up to their supervisor in the first place.

honest feedback without fear of reprisal is what builds trust...support of staff by management is what builds trust...and it starts with a climate of "do what's right and don't point fingers"...if that is missing, trust will be hard to earn.

Ahh, the good ole' "supervisors are upset because employees were honest" approach.

Having been a consultant, I don't know the approach taken by the one you worked with. But I do feel for you. I know it's tough - consultants can only do their jobs well (and give the bank the result they were hired for) if people are honest. What do supervisors expect - that you lie?

However, I have had to do that consulting job before. For example, the audit committee and the Compliance Officer were concerned that loan processing staff really didn't know what they were doing. Not for lack of trying, but they felt the training wasn't there and senior management over lending was not taking care of it. Talking to loan senior management, they were all "our people are all trained, there are no issues whatsoever." I then had to talk to the loan processors. I did the same thing you described, I had to talk to them individually and assure them they can be honest because I'm there to help, I won't use names or who said what, etc. And they opened up. Result - they truly didn't know what they were doing. They wanted to know, but training requests were denied, they were flying by the seat of their pants. They had lenders stomp all over them, imposing their will, etc.

Yes, that was in the report. Yes, senior management in loans was furious because this made them look bad. And yes, they knew who the loan processors were and so they knew who to be mad at. Not my fault - I was hired to identify a problem and I did. I did not use names but the loan processing team was addressed as a whole.

For what it's worth, I felt bad about it. I knew it would backfire on the loan processors (it did) but I also knew that they would never get the training they needed and wanted if things remained status quo. Since that time, executive management stepped in and lots of training was provided. I went back a year later and it was night and day. Curiously enough, the attitude of loan senior management and the lenders improved tremendously. I think they got ripped into from the top.

"Do the employees have anything to stand on regarding the breach of privacy and trust?"

If the employees are being targeted for speaking out to the consultant I would worry about harassment accusations, and depending on your management's attitude, a conversation between the employees and the HR manager may be in order to document the issue.

This. ^^^

I second the above comment about HR. But also, first thing I'd want to know, is the Board is aware of this? Was the consultant dismissed by the BOD or Executive mangement? Does the BOD know employees are being targeted for what they said? If the Board doesn't know, is there a whistleblower program in your bank, or any way to anonymously report this to them? If you have no anonymous route, you could potentially report this yourself to them. However, you have to understand it won't be confidential and it's very possible that they will tell bank management what you said. So there's a potential things could get worse.

No. At this point, none of the employees have been tangibly affected by the disclosures. If job actions are taken that may have their source in these events, then those affected may have a response.

I've written such reports as a consultant and, although contributors were never, ever mentioned, it would not have taken a rocket scientist to figure out who they were. What's happening in your bank i.e. being forced to hire a consultant and then firing the consultant for filing an accurate report, reflects a downward spiral where the arcs are getting shorter and shorter. Just stay out of the line of fire until the situation corrects itself. It will.

Otherwise, assuming the management study was mandated by the regulator, if things get bad enough you and your co-workers might seek an audience there.

FWIW, we got fired once before we even submitted the report. When management found out who we had interviewed they knew what it was going to say...

Yep, that was my point as well. You leave names out of it but it's not difficult to determine the source.



While that has not happened to me, I was threatened to be fired from a consulting job when I started asking "too many questions" which started uncovering some ugly fair lending issues. I was able to finish the engagement, but that was not fun.

Just went through this from last November until April of this year. I found out a little later the consultants came in to find a reason to terminate me because I reported something that was going on in the bank. The consultants were [read not good people]. I went through 4 meetings with them wanting me to be open and honest. Long story short their report was accidentally forwarded to me by email and when I read it I was upset. Needless to say I do not trust "consultants!" The next two to come in were almost as bad. They actually listened to one of the first consultants and took away one of my jobs and position...WRONGFULLY.

So my advice...Never talk to a consultant.

It would not be an automatic "yes" or "no" decision for me. Hopefully, I could just share with them the evidence of the opinions I had already expressed to the appropriate parties previously. That way, I would not sound like I was whining just because I had an audience.

Sounds to me like management had already made up their mind to terminate you. They didn't have guts to do it, so they hired consultants to justify their position. Sounds like hired guns.

Sorry for your experience but I don't think it's right to lump all consultants into this situation. I think it's more of poor management of the bank.

the consultants would only know to do this because of a management directive, how else would they know what is going on at your bank? so poor management finds a patsy to recommend your termination because they couldn't find a way, or didn't want to find a way, to do it themselves.

Bad move by management, but also a poor consultant that should be looking at processes independently and coming to their own conclusions, not one pre-determined by the bank.

If this was a "management study" ordered by a regulator, the consultant's goal is to figure out who the regulator wants to get the boot; the regulator was looking for a third party recommendation that matched the conclusion the regulator already reached. Generally, it was pretty easy to identify the weak link.

If the consultant doesn't come up with the right name, the regulator will not accept the management study.

The consultant simply would not solicit suggestions or accept advice from management because it's a member of management that the regulator wants out the door.