Much has been written about the Sbanken merger in both newspapers and social media, but one angle that has not been covered is how we employees have experienced this period.
I can only speak for myself, and would like to tell a little about my journey during this time.
For some people Sbanken had
I started at Sbanken in autumn 2019, and became part of the world’s best team. We were a group that only wanted the best for each other, we weren’t afraid to step on each other’s toes and we found an incredibly good way to work together.
We were completely different, so initially things could have gone completely wrong, but the respect, the ceiling height and the collective desire we had to create the best environment and the best product meant that we worked excellently together. Sbanken was not perfect, there are no jobs, but it is the people who create a job and FOR some people Sbanken had.
A long and winding road with both ups and downs
When the news of the acquisition came, it caused a lot of unrest. I don’t think it’s any secret that we didn’t want to be acquired by Norway’s biggest bank, while at the same time we knew that our biggest investor was doing just that: make a profit and then sell at a profit.
It was a long and winding road with both ups and downs.
From the first “no” from the Competition Authority, to a particularly surprising “yes” from the Competition Appeals Board a few months later. A rollercoaster of emotions and information flow, and a group of people who really just wanted to have peace of mind to work and deliver good experiences to customers.
A merger eats away
A merger eats away, regardless of whether it is wanted or not. Cultures must meet, people must be looked after and changes must be implemented. If there’s something we humans aren’t particularly fond of, it’s change, and we got that in buckets and buckets here. It also does something to the culture – you get to see people at their best and worst.
Some came together in the uncertainty and helped each other into a new everyday life, while others were busy positioning themselves in a new organisation. Both share a normal reaction, of course, but one of the toughest things we’ve been through is seeing people you love lose both self-confidence and security, and seeing that they’re in pain without being able to do much other than be there .
Considered changing jobs
For my own part, there was a lot of pondering over whether this was an organization I wanted to join. I’ll be honest and say that I researched several options during this period, but I didn’t find anything that triggered my motivation enough to switch.
I have only worked in relatively small companies in my working life and now I went from 350 in Sbanken to a group with over 10,000 workplaces. The fact that the media almost exclusively had negative articles and features about DNB did not help the motivation that much either. A former colleague of mine had worked at DNB before Sbanken, and chose not to go back because, as he said, “we were proud of our work, we were good colleagues who felt that we created value in the working day and for our customers, but in the media image was only negative. It wore off after a while.”
My own little sunshine story from DNB
But I have my own little sunshine story from DNB and maybe that’s why I still joined this merger. I have been a customer of DNB for almost 20 years and when I got divorced 6 years ago, I had a great desire to take over the detached house we lived in. It would be hard on one income, but thanks to my customer manager at DNB who worked very hard for me, and with the help of my parents to create a rental flat in the basement, that dream became a reality. Other banks just laughed at me when I came and asked for a loan, and they said that if DNB had given me a loan at that interest rate, I would just have to “run and buy”. My customer manager said that they have a great desire in DNB to reach out for customers in such life situations so that the children can keep their home. It is something I am extremely happy about, because six years later I still have the detached house and am doing well thanks to someone fighting a little extra hard for the dream with me.
It’s not perfect, we try and fail like everyone else
So now I’m here – in Norway’s largest bank. I am no longer in the Sbanken division, I have moved to a new position with a new team in the corporate bank. And you know what? Here, too, there are great people who want to create something good for our customers, who want to create well-being together in good teams and who look after each other. It’s not perfect, we try and fail like everyone else, only that here it becomes much more visible because we are Norway’s largest bank.
I have discovered that it IS easier to be a small challenger than the biggest.
It is definitely a transition to go from being employed at the bank with the most satisfied customers, which won customer service and innovation awards to being at the bank that mostly only gets highlighted in the media when there is something negative. I’m not saying we don’t make mistakes, but remember that things are never entirely black and white. DNB also does a lot of great things every year, such as support for keeping one’s home when life suddenly changes, as I experienced.
Promise to ask, fail, challenge change and speak your mind
Sbanken’s values are not as different from DNB’s as I thought either. I have always been particularly enthusiastic about the value “friendly rebel” and it is probably something I will always take with me. It is about having respect for history, but daring to challenge, and never accepting answers such as “this is how it has always been”. I see many similarities between this value and DNB’s value “curious”, and so far I feel that I get to be both a friendly rebel and a curious person at DNB.
It is allowed to ask questions, make mistakes, challenge change and, not least, speak your mind.
There are elementary things that must be in place for me to feel comfortable in a workplace. So now I’m no longer a Sbanker, although a small part of me will probably always feel like one. I have become a DNBer and I am happy to say that I am still proud of my workplace and the nice people I am lucky enough to work with every day.
