Windows of hearts show compassion for neighbors
Hearts at Northside.
As we mentioned a few weeks ago, lots of people and businesses are decorating their windows with hearts to show their neighbors a little extra love during this challenging time. As you see above, at our Northside branch, assistant branch manager Cathy Straka and teller Sam Mickelson filled the window with a veritable rainbow of hearts.
Janet’s house.
And senior deposit operations specialist Janet Russell covered her house in hearts as well. Beautiful!
Keep taking pictures of the hearts you put up or that you see when you’re out in the world, and send them to photos@northshorebank.com for us to share in Shorelines and on social media! •••
The new normal: Cuddly colleague
Summer, helping.
Senior deposit operations specialist Janet Russell shares these pics of her new co-worker Summer. “She loves to take naps in front of my monitor,” Janet says. “Plus, she is always stealing my work supplies!”
Send your stories and photos of social distancing and working from home under the “new normal” by email to shorelines@northshorebank.com or via text at 608-318-3348. We’ll run your submissions in an upcoming issue! •••
Online options make paying loans easy and fast
Need to make a payment on your North Shore Bank loan? Our lobbies may be under restricted access because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but that’s no problem, thanks to our online payment tools.
To set up online payments, simply go to northshorebank.com and select “Pay Your Loan” from the Other menu tab in the login drop-down. Then sign in, register for a new account, or select “Pay as a Guest” to begin the process.
To set up automatic payments, you’ll first need to download and fill out the automatic transfer form. Then mail in or fax the completed form to North Shore Bank as instructed on the document.
Want to reduce clutter and go green by signing up for electronic loan statements? Once you’re enrolled in Online Banking, you can register for eStatements. You will receive an email notification each month when your loan statement is available to view and download. •••
Service Anniversaries for April 2020
The following employees celebrate a milestone anniversary with North Shore Bank this month.
30 years
Pat Ingelse, Project Manager
25 years
Kim Konieczny, Senior Checking Services Representative
Sheri Livermore, Office Services Specialist
20 years
Tammy Hendrickson, Personal Banker, Sturgeon Bay East
Mary Ott, Marketing Coordinator
Dean Trout, Senior Vice President, CIO–Info Systems
Leave a comment to congratulate them!
SWOT analysis: A powerful tool for business planning
A standard SWOT analysis matrix.
To run your business well, you must know your business — and a SWOT analysis is an effective tool for achieving that knowledge. Covering your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, a SWOT analysis helps you see what your business can and cannot do.
Strengths and weaknesses are the internal factors affecting your business positively and negatively, while opportunities and threats are external factors. Filling in each quadrant of a standard SWOT analysis form involves asking yourself and other stakeholders in the business a series of questions.
Where strengths and opportunities align, you can set goals to grow; where weaknesses and threats align, you can take steps to shore up and protect your business. Essentially, a SWOT analysis makes it easier to plan wisely for your business’s future.
To learn more about how to do a SWOT analysis, check out this post on the bank’s blog. •••
Help kids set healthy habits by teaching them to cook
Take advantage of being stuck at home and do your kids — and yourself — a favor: Teach them how to cook!
Cleveland Clinic Wellness recently shared research suggesting that young adults who learned to cook growing up were likelier to prepare meals including vegetables and less likely to eat fast food. The clinic advises, “Make cooking dinner a family affair by dividing duties at mealtime (prep cook, sauté chef, salad maker) whenever you all have the time. Throw on some music to add some fun.” •••
Learn to have comforting talks when stressed
Most of us could use some comforting conversation right now, and our partners likely could too. But that can be hard when we’re under stress after weeks of being cooped up together because of the coronavirus pandemic. Cleveland Clinic Wellness recently offered some advice:
When your partner is stressed, don’t minimize the problem. Acknowledge it clearly and validate your partner’s feeling. And instead of trying to immediately find solutions to the problem, focus on listening, asking questions, and just being there. Nonverbal communication like eye contact, nodding, and reassuring touch is helpful, too. If all of this comes naturally to you, keep it up. If it doesn’t, practice, and you’ll get the hang of it.
It’s a skill set worth learning, and benefits not just mental health, but physical health too. “Stress makes levels of the hormone cortisol surge, and when stress is unrelenting, that soaring cortisol wreaks havoc on your body, including your heart,” the clinic notes. “But conversations between partners can reduce stress and tension, make cortisol levels drop, and let the body recover.” •••