Entrepreneurship Case Study: Analyzing Athena Bancorp's Challenges

This case study examines Athena Bancorp's entrepreneurial venture, focusing on its CEO's vision for community banking and expansion plans. The analysis delves into the staffing challenges faced by Athena, particularly the difficulty in hiring experienced professionals, leading to increased workload...Read More

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Business Case Study
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Executive summary
The case analyzes the perspectives of the management and takes into consideration the
performance reports and reviews of the organization to highlight how those challenges are
relevant and how it is important for the CEO to acknowledge and address these issues to
create a more realistic plan. For Athena, community banking is the key idea that has been
proposed by the CEO which currently is a new niche in the market that has yet to be
explored. The key challenges that are faced by Athena in terms of its recruitment and
selection have been discussed along with relevant recommendations. It was also be
understood that the biggest challenges that Athena Bancorp faced were due to the staffing
problems as a result of which an increase in workload occurred for the existing employees
and that caused a reduction in job retention and employee motivation

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Contents
Executive summary....................................................................................................................1
Case description.........................................................................................................................3
Analysis......................................................................................................................................3
Analysis of the entrepreneurship approach by Athena Bancorp............................................4
Analysis of the problems faced by Athena Bancorp..............................................................5
Recommendations:.....................................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References:.................................................................................................................................8

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Case description
The following case study is based on Athena Bancorp in context to the intention of the CEO,
Beth Daniels, to increase the banking processes through community banking and expansion
of its branches to 15 and increasing its deposits and loans by 3 times over the next five years.
This intention was communicated within the five-year plan proposed by the CEO. However,
such plans have some significant challenges in terms of staffing challenges, which further
created challenges in expansion and caused an increased workload on the existing employees.
The case analyzes the perspectives of the management and takes into consideration the
performance reports and reviews of the organization to highlight how those challenges are
relevant and how it is important for the CEO to acknowledge and address these issues to
create a more realistic plan.
The staffing challenge had been outlined by the Chief Human Resources Officer, Paul James.
It was mentioned that hiring experienced professionals within the banking sector is a key
problem of staffing due to which the existing employees often have to work much harder
thereby increasing work-related stress and reduces job satisfaction and job morale. This
increases employee turnover thereby adding to the problem of staffing faced by the
organization. the employee engagement has also reduced over the last several quarters which
were evaluated through the quarterly surveys (Paşaoğlu, 2015). It was feared by James that
the employees were stressed too much and were, therefore, reaching their breaking point.
Athena is trying to address such a situation through the development of a new software
platform called "TRUST" which can automate several manual processes thereby reducing the
workload and would take a year for implementation. However, in the meantime, this platform
would only increase the workload for the employees.
Analysis

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Outlined below is an analysis of the entrepreneurship approach in terms of the development
of the community banking system for Athena as well as the analysis of the different problems
faced by the company. the analysis would take into consideration the viewpoints presented by
the management and supported by the performance reports and data collected over the last
few quarters.
Analysis of the entrepreneurship approach by Athena Bancorp
Entrepreneurship can be understood as the process of planning and starting within a new
business often based on a new idea to fill a market gap. Entrepreneurs are therefore
characterized by traits like risk-taking, financial stability, curiosity, resilience, time
management, expertise and communication skills (Ahmad et al., 2015). For Athena,
community banking is the key idea that has been proposed by the CEO which currently is a
new niche in the market that has yet to be explored. This approach is based on the
development of a depository institution that is owned or operated locally (Cooke et al., 2019).
Community banking has a special focus on the financial needs of the community members
and supports local lending based on trust and through an understanding of the local needs of
the businesses, families and other community members (Farouk et al., 2016). Daniels, the
CEO, is of the understanding of the main benefits that community banking can provide for
expansion of the business and help Athena to achieve its targets of increasing its deposits and
loans by 3 fold. This understanding was based on the fact that community banks can help to
increase attention on the needs of the local businesses, families, and farmers, they can help to
channel the loans to the neighborhoods where most of the depositors work or live thereby
helping in the growth of the local communities and generating goodwill, Increasing
accessibility for the customers by dealing with them onsite and improve involvement in local
community events (Lux& Greene, 2015).

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Analysis of the problems faced by Athena Bancorp
The key challenges that are faced by Athena in terms of its recruitment and selection can be
summarized as under:
 Skills gap: Studies show that within the financial industry, the skills gap is constantly
increasing with 70% of financial organizations facing an increasing problem in this
regard. This gap is expected to increase to 76% in the next 3 quarters and can be
difficult for banking organizations to fill (Mester, 2018).
 Lack of candidates in the mid-career: Within the financial sector, financial crises and
low economic years led to several people leaving the industry-leading to a shortage of
mid-career employees. Such candidates have a significant demand because of their
experience and expertise and therefore have become a significant challenge for the
HR department to recruit (Waupsh, 2016).
 Retaining talented employees: Due to the high demand for talented and experienced
employees as banking professionals, within the market, there has been an increased
turnover of the employees as the number of opportunities has increased. Because of
this, Athena is facing a challenge to retain its skilled employees (Bullard, 2018).
 Developing a positive culture: Because of the increased work stress and lack of
morale and job satisfaction among the employees, the culture of Athena has also been
affected which currently is harming the productivity of the organization (Mester,
2018).
 More choice for job seekers: The increasing market competition in the banking sector,
the job seekers have more choices and therefore have more power in the negotiation
process on the hiring terms. This also has led to a reduction in the rate of hiring as the
expectations of the job seekers in terms of their remuneration have also increased
(Farouk et al., 2016).

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Recommendations:
Athena Bancorp can address the key challenges faced by it by implementing the following
recommendations which are outlined under:
 Implementing strong training, mentorship, and skills development programs to
continually upgrade the employee skills and thereby fill the skills gap. This approach
can help to create and develop talent from within the workforce and help the
promotion of its internal workforce which in turn can improve employee morale and
job retention.
 Increasing the remunerations and financial support to the employees in the form of
incentives, performance bonuses, and benefits. This can help to boost employee
morale as well as support better engagement and thereby the business managers to
reduce turnover and also retain its experienced workforce.
 Supporting the employees to develop an effective work-life balance through time
management and preventing work stress through the avoidance of putting the
excessive workload on the employees. Programs to help employees take their mind
off and relax between work to mitigate work stress can also opt.
(Ahmad et al., 2015; Mester, 2018)
Conclusion
From the above study, it could be understood that the biggest challenges that Athena Bancorp
faced were due to the staffing problems as a result of which an increase in workload occurred
for the existing employees and that caused a reduction in job retention and employee
motivation. Because of this Athena was face difficulties to retain its experienced employees
and made the five-year plan of increasing its banking network a significant challenge.

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References:
Ahmad, N., SulamanTariqb, M., &Hussain, A. (2015). Human resource practices and
employee retention, pieces of evidence from banking sector of Pakistan. Journal of
business and management research, 7(3), 186-188.
Bullard, J. B. (2018). Welcoming Remarks: at the Sixth Annual Community Banking in the
21st Century Research and Policy Conference, Federal Reserve System, Conference
of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.(FDIC), St.
Louis, Mo (No. 322).
Cooke, F. L., Cooper, B., Bartram, T., Wang, J., & Mei, H. (2019). Mapping the relationships
between high-performance work systems, employee resilience and engagement: a
study of the banking industry in China. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 30(8), 1239-1260.
Farouk, S., Abu Elanain, H. M., Obeidat, S. M., & Al-Nahyan, M. (2016). HRM practices
and organizational performance in the UAE banking sector: The mediating role of
organizational innovation. International Journal of Productivity and Performance
Management, 65(6), 773-791.
Lux, M., & Greene, R. (2015). The state and fate of community banking. M-RCBG associate
working paper, 37(31), 2-3.
Mester, L. J. (2018). Community Banking and the Community Reinvestment Act; Community
Banking in the 21st Century Research and Policy Conference, Federal Reserve Bank
of St. Louis, St. Louis, MO: 10.03. 18 (No. 100).

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Paşaoğlu, D. (2015). Analysis of the relationship between human resources management
practices and organizational commitment from a strategic perspective: Findings from
the banking industry. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 207, 315-324.
Waupsh, J. (2016). Bankruption: How Community Banking Can Survive Fintech. John Wiley
& Sons.