Top executives at a great many Massachusetts banks trace their careers to a common starting point: The management training program.

Until about 25 years ago, virtually all large banks recruited, hired and developed talent through programs designed to teach either recent college graduates or young employees how each bank department worked. At the end of the "rotation," participants in the programs would take jobs in the departments that best matched their abilities.

It was expensive, however. And far too many employees completed the training program only to find jobs with competitors shortly thereafter. As a result, banks began doing away with large-scale management training curriculums several years ago.

But in recent years, those programs have been making a comeback – but not on a large scale, and not necessarily at large banks.

Cambridge Savings Bank has operated its training programs – one for retail management and one for general talent development – for two years. The bank said it interviews between six and eight candidates for the programs, and selects two per year.

Participants are hired into the program, assigned mentors and spend between four and six weeks in each department at the bank.

Marie Lodi, Cambridge Savings’ senior vice president and chief marketing officer, told Banker & Tradesman the two programs allow the bank to recruit both recent (or soon-to-be) college graduates and folks with useful work experience.

"They might have sales skills, or management skills, but it’s not in banking," Lodi said.

Laying Out A Path

Over six months or a year, Cambridge Savings brings trainees through each of its departments, from the teller line to business banking. Candidates also get schooled on networking, presentation skills, time management and other practical skills, including "how to run a meeting, how to coach people and how to manage employees," Lodi said.

At the conclusion of the program, the bank ultimately decides where each trainee fits best in the operation. With salary and benefits, the program costs 16-branch, 300-employee Cambridge Savings about $80,000 per trainee.

"And at the end, we have a well-trained employee.  They see they have a career here," Lodi said. "We’ve laid it out for them."

Lodi acknowledged that some trainees may leave the bank shortly after completing the program, but said it’s a risk the bank is willing to take in order to keep qualified employees in the pipeline.

One of them is Justin Doyle, a 29-year-old former retail manager nearing completion of the Cambridge Savings program.

"I wanted to switch," Doyle told Banker & Tradesman. "I applied and went through several interviews, but didn’t have any banking experience, so everything has been something I had to completely absorb, from upper-level management, to corporate banking to marketing. I’ve learned a ton."

"In the next few weeks, I’ll sit down with them and hopefully have the whole path laid out for me," said Doyle, a Winchester resident who is also enrolled part-time in a masters degree program at the New England College of Business and Finance.

Massachusetts Bankers Association Executive Vice President David Floreen, like many present day bank executives, said he fondly remembers the training programs run by big banks a generation ago.

"There had to be 30 banks or more that recruited on campus, and they all had training programs," Floreen told Banker & Tradesman. "The point of closure was really the banking crisis."

Pros & Cons

Banks are "finding out what works today," Floreen said, in response to students interested in careers in the industry. It’s still an expensive proposition, even to develop "four or five" trainees, he said. But compared to the between 50- and 100-student classes large banks fed through their programs between the 1960s and the 1980s, it’s a risk more banks should be willing to take, especially considering the amount of training that can be done online.

And it’s not difficult for a bank CEO, who perhaps came through a training program, to look around and notice the average age of his or her employees increasing.

"It’s an issue that CEOs are very much aware of," Floreen said. "They‘re all looking at more effective ways to bring the next generation of young people into banking, and there is a lot of interest at the college level."

And in addition to a clear path to a management level position, these programs give trainees "exposure to different segments of the bank, they foster teamwork and camaraderie, which is essential in a ‘people skills’ organization," Floreen said.

Floreen said he wasn’t ready to say training programs were making a full-scale comeback, but he has noticed that "several banks have put together some kind of training program."

One of them is Lowell-based Enterprise Bank, which started its program about a decade ago.

Enterprise Senior Vice President Mary Ellen Fitzpatrick said the bank has experienced the program’s pitfalls.

"Certainly we’ve lost people, they come to us out of college, we recruit on campus," she told Banker & Tradesman.

But the pros far outweigh the cons, she said.

"A good portion have stayed with us" and have become senior managers. Fitzpatrick specifically mentioned Jaime Gabriel, a senior vice president, and Vice President Ryan Dunn.

"They have taken on senior responsibility, and they’re young," Fitzpatrick said. "They’re in their thirties."