Republic Bank Committed to a Caring Vision

Republic Bank Barbados has been identified as embodying what the Regional Banking Group is all about.

That assessment came from President and CEO of Republic Financial Holdings Limited (RFHL), Nigel Baptiste, who was recently in Barbados participating in Republic Bank’s Blue Thunder Forum held at the Hilton Hotel.

The Forum provided staff with a progress report on Blue Thunder, Republic Bank’s programme designed to capture objectives of achievement in a number of key areas. These include cultural revitalisation and employee engagement; customer service and relationships; process and technological efficiency and improvements; and community relationships.

Addressing staff after participating in an engaging and interactive reporting session, Baptiste said the progress and performance of the local subsidiary “epitomised what the whole Republic Bank group was all about”.

He urged the local staff to continue in this vein, noting it was his intention to maintain a very close relationship with Republic Bank Barbados. The Group’s vision, Baptiste said, was of development through caring about the wellbeing of colleagues, clients, communities, and the Caribbean as a whole. “As we move forward in the organisation, and as you move forward in your careers, one thing I really want us to focus on – and I come back to where I started, is caring. Caring about your colleagues, caring about your clients, and caring about the society within which you operate. In the final analysis, if we don’t care about our colleagues, there is no way we can be genuine in caring about our clients, and caring about the society, so it has to start there,” Baptiste said.

Noting that the Republic Bank Group would have it no other way, Baptiste said the vision of caring was even more important, in light of the fact that Republic Bank touched more people across Caribbean communities than any of its competitors in the industry.

“We therefore have a much greater impact on what happens in any society that we operate in than any of our competitors has. And so the responsibility, the onus on us is far greater than it is on any of our competitors.”

Baptiste said Blue Thunder would help to keep staff focused on growth and development to the benefit of staff and customers. “The question was asked, what next for Blue Thunder. Blue Thunder will never end. Blue Thunder 2.0 will become Blue Thunder 3.0 and 4.0 only because it is a name to keep us focused. The underlying activities I think we can all agree are activities that need to continue. We need to build in this Republic Bank Group, a culture where all of us in the Republic Bank family feel, first of all, that we are cared about by the organisation.”