Author
As we close out 2020, I am pleased to recognize and thank our dedicated employees, especially those whose jobs necessitated working on-site during a historic global pandemic.
Despite the challenges of the past year, our employees kept our key services operating. We did not let the public or our customers down. That was an amazing response to the economic and financial crisis we faced while shifting more than 90 percent of our workforce to remote work.
Our employees stepped up and leaned into our mission to ensure that we carried out our responsibilities uninterrupted in support of our economy and financial systems, which is a testament to their public service orientation, professionalism, and dedication.
While this year was trying and filled with uncertainty, we have countless examples of employees and departments going above and beyond to exceed goals or address unexpected challenges. I want to specifically recognize a few divisions among the many I could have selected:
- Our Customer Contact Center makes sure that financial institutions can process payments for their customers and helps those customers with contingency events. In the early days of the pandemic, they made sure our customers could respond effectively to the pandemic.
- Our Treasury Services team fulfills U.S. savings bond redemptions on behalf of the U.S. Treasury. This work cannot be done off-site, so for the vast majority of 2020, the team rotated staff on-site to work in a safe and socially distanced way to meet the needs of bond holders from across the country and around the world.
- Our Information Technology team not only enabled 1,000 employees to work effectively from home with the Bank’s equipment and technology, they also learned and deployed numerous new collaboration and virtual meeting tools and pioneered safe processes for getting equipment to, and onboarding, new employees.
- Our Law Enforcement units maintained security at our facilities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week while abiding by our enhanced safety protocols.
- Our Facilities Management team ensured that our buildings received regular maintenance, were upgraded to promote physical distancing, implemented enhanced cleaning, and rotated staff on-site, as needed, to manage construction or maintenance projects.
- Our Business Continuity team led our cross-functional crisis team, which coordinated our response to the pandemic.
- And, not least, our Cash department ensured that financial institutions across our region were able to maintain an adequate supply of currency and coin through an unprecedented economic downturn.
Please join me in extending gratitude to all of our employees. The Bank simply could not effectively serve citizens of the Ninth District without their commitment.
