Jean Tennihan, the senior vice president of human resources at Dedham Institution for Savings, says she is “where she is supposed to be.” It took 46 years to get there.
Jean Tennihan started as a part time teller at the community bank, which serves the Greater Boston area, when she was just 19 years old. She eventually moved up to a full-time teller, then landed in customer service, followed by a promotion to assistant branch manager. She later became a human resources representative and in 2010, was promoted to her current position, senior vice president.
Dedham Savings has no stockholders to please, so unlike many nationwide or New-England wide banks, Dedham Savings forms their own decisions, which is just one of Tennihan’s favorite things about the bank.
Tennihan’s responsibilities include hiring, terminating, and counseling employees. She also works on benefits and payroll, along with record reporting, government reporting, disciplinary action, and annual reports. Tennihan is responsible for the “people part,” as she says. Tennihan has hired every employee who currently works at Dedham Savings besides her other two HR representatives.
Tennihan said she “lives in the land of grey” in her job.
She is on call at least once a week with 40 or more HR workers from other banks around New England.
She said most people look at their job in HR as black and white, and she will never be able to do so, which can be both a blessing and a curse.
Tennihan said her least favorite part of her job is terminating.
“Firing people always eats me up. Part of it is that even if we have sat with someone and told them what we had to do and set the expectations, there is still this lingering feeling that I hold on to; that I am sending them back out into this world with no job. They have to tell their friends and family that they lost their job and that their unemployed, and that is heart wrenching to me,” she said.
Tennihan recalled a time where the former CEO of Dedham Savings sat down and talked to her about her new position.
He said to Tennihan that he thought she was ready to do her first termination.
“If your job ever gets easy, it is the wrong job. You should always feel affected,” she said the former CEO told her.
Going into this position, Tennihan said that she thought her job was to “make everyone fit at the bank.”
The first termination was with the “kindest man I have ever met,” she said.
She said that he would “bow his head when he greeted you, he was so respectful and kind, everyone loved him, but he could not balance as a teller.”
The man went through teller training multiple times to learn his job, but he just could not get the hang of it.
“I took him into my office, and I started to cry immediately,” Tennihan said, “and he counseled me instead, saying, Jean, it is okay, I will be fine.”
Tennihan said he came back to the bank to see her after two months. He was driving a brand-new BMW because he had become salesman of the month at the BMW Gallery.
“It was this little switch that went off…I was trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole…if I kept trying to make him work here, I would have held him back from where he belonged. It was a termination that ripped my heart out, and then it was a switch that made me realize that my job was not to make everyone fit in at Dedham Savings.”
Tennihan said that one of the biggest hardships of firing people is that the situation could be the boss’s fault more than the employee.
“Bosses can also be very black and white, and demanding of their employees,” she said.
Tennihan recalled a story of a termination of a woman who claimed she was made to feel like she was not good enough for her position by her supervisor. When she told Tennihan her side of the story, Tennihan bought her flowers the next day, and apologized that she was made to feel this way at the bank. This made Tennihan realize she had to make her actions less formal and more personal within the bank.
For example, there was an empty office that was too small for someone in HR to work at. So, Tennihan went to Home Goods, bought two big comfy chairs, a sofa, a pillow with the words “be kind” stitched onto it, and a framed Pablo Picasso quote. She created a space where she could counsel employees. She said her interest in mediation has helped with this job, working to make people happy.
Tennihan said that even after all these years, hiring is still her favorite part of the job. She gets excited about bringing someone into the company, knowing the possibilities that Dedham Savings can grant them with.
“We continue to marvel at the uniqueness of this organization as we look around and witness the day to day interactions of our workforce. The diversity and blending of cultures create a value and a subtle education to our day to day conversations. Our harmony is not only valued by our employees, but it is noticed and complimented by consultants, customers, and vendors who visit our bank. And while there may by an Organizational Chart that designates the necessary vertical reporting structure, there is a horizontal feel in every sense of the word as we acknowledge the value and individuality each employee brings through the door every day.”
Tennihan said that there are always going to be people that hear things differently. She recalled one time where she was responsible for extending vacation time. Instead of just two weeks, she made it two weeks and two days, so employees could have a little time after their two-week break to bounce back into work. She could not wait to share this news. A lot of employees were excited. But one 15-year employee said in response, “is this going to be retroactive to the day I started at the bank?”
Tennihan lost her sense of excitement and it was that moment when she realized how every individual has a different focus.
Tennihan said she never expected herself to work in HR.
She never finished college and was not sure what the future would hold for her.
She said her job reaffirmed her theory that “we land where we are supposed to be.”
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