Culture is important for every bank, but never more so than when employees are remote amid the COVID-19 pandemic. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Infinidat — Norway Savings Bank Chairwoman and CEO Pat Weigel discusses how the bank’s employees build its “high-achievement, high-support” culture through “culture crews” that focus on leadership development, efficiency, DEI, remote work and other issues.

“The employees in the bank are really the ones who are building the culture,” says Weigel, who will retire at the end of 2021 as CEO of the Maine-based mutual bank. It doesn’t live with me.”

Weigel also talks about how Norway Savings Bank focuses on DEI in its local context (including engaging the immigrants arriving in Maine), has pursued gender balance in its management team and how its mutual form of ownership contributes to its culture.