Good to return to Nordea
After working briefly for another bank, adviser Bettina Kaas Hansen had to admit to herself that she missed Nordea too much. Luckily, she was able to return to another job at Nordea
“Are you really sure?”
Her colleagues at the branch office in Rønne could hardly believe their ears when Bettina Kaas Hansen told them that she was resigning to take up a job with a nearby branch office of Sydbank.
“They couldn’t understand it, as they knew that I was very happy in my job at Nordea. And I really was – but now that my children had grown up, I started thinking that maybe it was time for me to move on in my career.”
That is why she in 2022 took up the position as head of personal customers at Sydbank in Rønne. Her tasks included being a manager of five employees as well as customer contact. But quite soon she came to realise that she had not made the right decision.
“I've previously been a union representative, but never a manager, so it was exciting to try it out. But before long I clearly felt that my passion is working with customers. I would rather deliver results than motivate employees, and my job satisfaction dwindled,” she says, emphasising that there was nothing wrong with Sydbank’s culture or the colleagues.
Heart belongs to Nordea
“The fact is just that my heart belongs to Nordea and the values I have worked with at the bank for many years. After I left Nordea it became really clear to me how strong the bank’s values are throughout the entire value chain.”
Bettina Kaas Hansen simply experiences that Nordea employees are passionate about going the extra mile for customers to help them achieve their goals – and are good at working together across the organisation to make this happen.
This is something that has been instilled in her for 20 years.
She originally started as a trainee at Nordea in Vordingborg where she grew up. Later she worked at the branch office in Taastrup and a number of other branch offices in the Copenhagen area before she and her family in 2008 settled down in Bornholm where her children’s father has family roots.
Came back
When Bettina Kaas Hansen soon after starting her job at Sydbank began to really miss Nordea as a workplace, she did not do anything right away:
“I told myself that I owed both Sydbank and myself to give it a fair chance.”
After about six months she could not put it off any longer.
“Every day when I biked to work, I felt more like turning right towards Nordea than left towards Sydbank. I had to stay true to my values, which spoke to me loudly and clearly.”
So she was quick to act when Head of Branch Region Gitte Carlsen reached out after she had heard that Bettina Kaas Hansen was missing Nordea.
”Gitte Carlsen said: ‘We would love to welcome you back to the family.’ It was really a relief.”
Bettina Kaas Hansen was given the opportunity to take up a new position, as her previous position had meanwhile been filled elsewhere.
In her new position, which she started about a year ago, she is based at the Lyngby branch office, but most of the time she works from Bornholm where she also shares office premises with her former colleagues – except on the days when she chooses to work from home.
“I feel really lucky in this job. Nordea is currently on a trial basis giving advisers around the country the opportunity to work for a branch office without being geographically close to it. After the coronavirus many customers agree to have online meetings. If this is too much of a challenge for them, I’m also happy to meet with them in person,” says Bettina Kaas Hansen, who commutes to the Lyngby branch office about once every two weeks.
Improved work qualifications
“It’s important for me to be a fully-fledged member of the Lyngby team. At the same time, I find that both I and the colleagues in Rønne benefit from the input I share across the branch offices and regions.”
The work with customers in Lyngby involves more complex loan solutions than for a typical customer at the Rønne branch office, and this has also meant that Bettina Kaas Hansen has strengthened her work qualifications.
“I feel that I've got the best of three worlds: A fantastic team at Lyngby, including many young colleagues who inspire me – and who I can on the other hand guide and share my experience with. My own desk at the branch office in Rønne with the opportunity of knowledge sharing and community. And the opportunity to work from home when convenient.
And of course also the feeling of having come back to the right place:
“I feel that I’ve come home again – there is something quite true about Nordea being a family.”