NHMB Builds Succession-Ready Talent Across Multiple Bank Affiliates
Executive Summary
New Hampshire Mutual Bancorp (NHMB), a 150-year-old community banking organization with over 550 employees across five companies, faced a critical challenge: how to develop and retain talent in an increasingly competitive banking market while meeting regulatory succession planning requirements. The NHMB case study from TalentGuard will explain to you how they were able to develop and retain talent in this competitive market.
“Regulators look at succession planning when they come in,” explains David Cronin, who led NHMB’s talent transformation initiative. “They’re always asking, what are we doing with our talent to bring them along?”
Compounded by generational workforce changes—”younger workers want to know where they can go, what they need to do, and they want to know now”—NHMB needed a comprehensive solution that could unify talent development across their multi-affiliate structure while providing the transparency modern employees demand.
By implementing TalentGuard’s integrated talent management platform, NHMB transformed from siloed, inconsistent development programs to a unified system that enables cross-affiliate career mobility, regulatory-compliant succession planning, and employee-driven development paths.
Customer Overview
- Organization: New Hampshire Mutual Bancorp (NHMB)
- Structure: Holding company for three community banks (each ~150 years old) plus wealth management division
- Employees: 550+ across five entities
- Location: New Hampshire (White Mountains/Lake Winnipesaukee region)
- Industry: Community Banking & Wealth Management
- Key Contact: David Cronin, Chief Human Resources Officer
The Challenge
Regulatory and Market Pressures
NHMB operates in a tightly regulated industry where succession planning isn’t optional—it’s a compliance requirement. “Succession in banking, in our organization, which tends to be a pretty mature industry, is something we have to pay attention to,” Cronin notes. During regular regulatory examinations, banks must demonstrate comprehensive talent development strategies.
Simultaneously, the community banking sector faces unprecedented talent challenges. “Talent and employment in our industry is getting tighter and tighter to find and hold on to that talent,” particularly as younger employees bring different expectations for career development and transparency.
Structural Complexity
NHMB’s unique multi-affiliate structure created additional challenges:
- Five Separate Companies: One holding company providing shared services (HR, IT, finance, compliance) to three community bank brands plus wealth management, each maintaining distinct brand identities and geographic footprints.
- Cross-Affiliate Mobility Needs: Someone can actually start in one part of the organization, say one affiliate, and end up migrating to another affiliate for various reasons—either a job opportunity or geographic preferences, or they want to move up to the shared services environment.
- Inconsistent Standards: Despite similar roles across affiliates (branch managers, tellers, commercial lenders), there was no consistency in assessing what skills were needed for success or advancement.
Operational Inefficiencies
- Disparate systems: Excel worksheets, scattered training records, disconnected databases
- Manual workflows: Time-intensive data gathering for succession discussions
- Limited visibility: Managers couldn’t easily see employee development activities or coaching opportunities
- Siloed development: Retail banking had some structure, but back-office functions lacked formal career pathways
TalentGuard’s Solution
Unified Framework Across Affiliates
TalentGuard provided industry-specific banking templates that enabled NHMB to establish consistent role expectations across all affiliates. “When we say a branch manager role requires certain levels of competency in these skill areas, all the banks agree,” Cronin explains. “That’s the foundation work we have to do to create frameworks that they can all agree on.”
Unified Talent Framework
TalentGuard delivered an industry-specific solution tailored to banking and finance, enabling NHMB to avoid starting from scratch. These included:
- Prebuilt job roles and competency models based on labor market data
- Suggested career pathways across job families and affiliates
- AI-enhanced gap analysis and development recommendations
This approach allowed NHMB to fast-track deployment while preserving the flexibility to customize according to internal strategy.
Configurable Performance Management
TalentGuard’s flexible performance module supports customizable components, incorporates employee input, and integrates seamlessly with ADP — enabling dynamic feedback and team-wide alignment. TalentGuard demonstrated a highly flexible performance module, featuring:
- Modular review design: job performance, values, goals, job-based competencies
- Customizable rating scales and comment fields
- Employee-driven inputs with managerial oversight
- Ongoing check-ins and snapshot tracking
- Export-ready integration for ADP’s compensation module
This solution allowed NHMB to run quarterly or annual review cycles while supporting real-time feedback loops across teams.
Succession Planning and Talent Tools
Role-based dashboards gave managers a centralized view of team performance, real-time progress tracking, and cross-affiliate talent pool visibility. This enhances clarity on bench strength and leadership readiness.Through role-based provisioning and tailored dashboards, managers could:
- Access a centralized view of their team’s performance and development
- Submit real-time logs to track progress
- View and manage talent pools across affiliates
This functionality provided clarity around internal bench strength and readiness for leadership roles.
Seamless Integration with ADP and LMS Platforms
TalentGuard integrated seamlessly with ADP and LMS platforms, using AI to map learning to roles and skills, supporting automated feedback–positioning it as the single source of truth for talent development. Features included:
- AI-powered learning maps that link relevant content to specific skills and roles
- Automated course completion feedback into TalentGuard
This setup allowed TalentGuard to function as the single source of truth for job roles while integrating seamlessly with HRIS and learning systems.
Implementation Results
Regulatory Compliance Success
We were successful and able to show our regulators our new employee development process… it helped them understand the comprehensive nature of what we’re trying to achieve.
NHMB now demonstrates clear succession planning methodologies during regulatory examinations, with identified talent pools and development roadmaps for critical positions.
Employee Engagement and Transparency
Employees now have clear visibility into career paths– with defined skills and development milestones. The platform encourages self-directed growth, empowering staff to own their career journey. Employees can now see what their career paths are. We’re not hiding them. The platform enables clear visibility into advancement opportunities, whether moving from retail branch environments to wealth management financial advisory roles or transitioning between affiliates.
- Career Path Clarity: Employees entering as tellers can now see specific skill requirements and development activities needed to advance to branch manager or supervisory positions.
- Self-Directed Development: We see engagement by employees creating their own paths and working on their own development plans.
Operational Efficiency Gains
The platform consolidates employee data into a single system, replacing scattered records. This gives managers clearer insights for coaching, while standardized frameworks support consistent evaluations across affiliates– boosting talent mobility.
- Consolidated Information: It’s allowed us to consolidate where the information resides on our people. It’s all in one database versus disparate systems, Excel worksheets, or different training records.
- Enhanced Coaching: Managers can now see what employees are working on, making coaching discussions more focused and actionable.
- Cross-Affiliate Consistency: Managers across all affiliates now evaluate similar roles using identical frameworks, enabling seamless talent mobility and eliminating assessment inconsistencies.
Key Outcomes
- Resource Requirements: “Doing it right takes time and focus,” Cronin explained. “We were limited by internal resources, so we hired someone to support system-related setup and on-going enablement.”
- Change Management Approach: Success requires willing manager participation and a staged and agile rollout. Starting with retail banking provided quick wins and built momentum for broader organizational adoption.
- Industry-Specific Value: NHMB’s experience shows how TalentGuard’s effectively supports multi-affiliate financial institutions.
Key Success Factors
- Start with engaged departments (retail banking provided early wins)
- Address regulatory requirements first (executive succession planning)
- Invest in integration (LMS connectivity delivers ongoing value)
- Plan for resource requirements (dedicated implementation support is essential)
Looking Ahead
NHMB’s journey with TalentGuard represents a thoughtful, phased approach to talent management transformation in community banking. While still in implementation stages, the foundation is strong: regulatory compliance achieved, employee engagement increasing, and operational efficiency improving.
With their infrastructure now in place and dedicated resources secured, NHMB is positioned for accelerated progress over the next year. The completion of commercial banking frameworks will extend career visibility to their entire customer-facing workforce, while the planned performance management module activation will provide comprehensive talent analytics for strategic decision-making.
As David Cronin notes, “In the next year, we foresee significant momentum”—likely including measurable improvements in internal mobility, employee retention, and succession readiness across all five affiliates. NHMB is well on its way to becoming a model for integrated talent development in community banking.
Final Call to Action / Contact Information
For community banks and multi-affiliate financial institutions:
- Are you prepared for your next regulatory examination’s succession planning review?
- Can your employees clearly see advancement opportunities across your organization?
TalentGuard’s proven success in solving community banking talent challenges — from regulatory compliance to cross-affiliate mobility — can help you build a more engaged, development-ready workforce.
Ready to transform your talent strategy?
- Schedule a demo focused on community banking succession planning
- Learn about our banking-specific implementation methodology
- Discover how other community banks are solving similar challenges
Contact TalentGuard:
Transform your talent management approach–from siloed development to succession-ready!
