Priorities for Central Iowa’s largest employer: Talent recruitment and retention, offering its workforce career paths, restoring trust with customers and among workers, data security.

Wells Fargo’s Mary Mack, the financial and banking firm’s senior executive vice president and head of consumer banking, spoke with the Business Record about these topics on a brief trip to Iowa.

Mack, who began with Wells Fargo in 1984, oversees 107,000 workers across the country. She was in Des Moines to serve as the keynote speaker at the Governor’s Scouts Luncheon Feb. 7.

Here are excerpts from our interview with Mack.

One of the things the Business Record hears repeatedly from business leaders is how we have a talent shortage here. As someone who’s overseeing more than 100,000 employees nationally, could you talk about what are some efforts that Wells Fargo is doing to recruit and retain employees?
Mack: I would say in this market and across the country, I’m really pleased with the success that we’re having in recruiting people into Wells Fargo. We talked about this yesterday, actually, at the town hall [with local workers]; there are a lot of people who want to be a part of this story. 
You’re right, this market — one of the great things about it are the people who live here — it’s a tight labor market and there are jobs looking for people. We experienced that, too. But we’re investing in things in the company like how do we think about retraining team members for different roles, how do we think about career progression for our team members, even across businesses. We’re a company with a lot of opportunities, and we need to make it easier for people to move across the business to this opportunity. 

This is a go-to market for us. It’s actually our third-largest team member concentration in the country, which is pretty cool. And maybe not in the places you would have guessed. Charlotte, Minneapolis, Des Moines are our three biggest markets for our team. And so it it remains important.

Workers at Wells Fargo have been adapting to changes in the last few years and may wonder what their futures could be.
Mack: Our team members have a lot of transferable skills. The skills that you have in one role, if it’s in the customer care part of our business or maybe in the operational aspects of our business, those are very transferable. And we need to do a better job of helping team members understand that and see that translation as well as helping prepare them for the next role. So it’s a big focus of ours. We have a new head of human resources who joined the company in the summer. He’s made that a priority to think about how we help our team members with that kind of opportunity and progression toward it. There are a ton of advantages to being a big company, which is you have a lot of opportunities. But also, if we’re not careful, it can be harder for people to move around. We need to make it easier.

What are some technology matters or challenges that you are working on now, and what are you looking at for the future?
Mack: So when I think about a person sitting here with two of these phones, I think about the the way all of us have changed in our lives, every single one of us have changed the way we interact and operate and do things. And we shouldn’t think that banking is any different. Our customers demand convenience in a way that has been redefined by the broad marketplace, not just financial services. We’re doing a lot of things to ensure that our customers get the convenience expectation that they would have and bring into their relationship. Like last week the wind chill is 51 below. If we can help customers do things in the convenience of their own home in the winter, right in the safety of their own home with a device, then we should do that. 

We’ve invested in things like mobile deposit. So you can can make an immediate, almost, cash transfer through the network. We’ve got card-free ATM, so that if you are out and you don’t have your ATM, you can access either a code or, many of them, they’re NFC-enabled. So in 5,000 ATMs across the country, you can just tap your phone and access the ATM. People are used to being able to do that, and we want to make sure that all of the behaviors that they’ve incorporated into their daily lives, those that are appropriate, we can incorporate into their banking relationship.

You have a lot of data on customers and so forth. What measures are you taking to help guard that very sensitive information?
Mack: I would tell you that data and cybersecurity is probably one of the No. 1 focus areas for us because of exactly what you talked about. It is really important information for customers and enables a whole lot of their life’s hopes and dreams. And so we spend, we’re we’re not specific externally about the things we do, only because then that even compromises the security of it. It’s probably a top spend for us, as well as a top focus area is on ensuring that our customers have the confidence and trust they need to have in the security of their information.

At the shareholders meeting held in Des Moines last year, Tim Sloan spent a lot of time on remarks about restoring trust with customers, because it’s been a rough couple of years [with mishandling customer accounts coming to light and subsequent investigations]. Where do you feel you’re at as a corporation in restoring that trust?
Mack: We’ve tried to go to places that are important for Wells Fargo so that not only our customers but also our team members can experience some of the events that otherwise would feel very far away for them. And Tim spends a lot of time, almost all the time, talking about the things that we’re doing to restore trust. Because we know that it’s a journey, that it takes time. …

We spent a lot of time in getting a lot of information and personally travel all over the country meeting with team members. I’ve done probably 100 different market visits, a couple of hundred listening sessions, getting information from thousands of team members directly around what are we doing that’s working really well? What are you hearing from your customers? What do we have that still makes it hard for you to do the job you want to do? We’re gathering that, and that goes directly into the changes that we’re making as a company. 

We’ve made a commitment to be very transparent in our communications and our disclosures. … I think more than anything, we’ve really become a listening organization, whether it’s listening to our team, listening to our customers. One of the things we did just after the sales practice announcement is we increased our customer survey feedback by 50 percent, because we wanted to hear more from more people and will continue to evolve that over time as we think about how to gather more input real time and how we’re doing and where those pain points might be.

Are there any changes coming to Iowa operations? And if there are, what might they be?
Mack: Des Moines continues to be a go-to market for us. So as I just said, things will continue to change and evolve. 
But I would say our commitment to Des Moines does not change. … It’s a really important market for us with really talented team members across all businesses. We have a big mortgage operation, but it’s not just mortgage. It’s every single line of business. Everyone has an important presence here. And mortgage is only half of the team member base, even in Des Moines.

You are speaking to the Girl and Boy Scouts today. If you were a Girl Scout, could you share what badge you were most proud of earning?
Mack: I’m not sure I could answer it about Girl Scout badges. I would tell you the badge I am most proud is that of mom.