5 common culture-killers within your credit union (and how to fix them!)
Every credit union around the country has a company culture. This “culture” is the result of how each credit union treats their employees and the attitude of their employees in return. A financial institution with an unhealthy or toxic culture often features employees that no longer focus on what’s best for the member, and instead focus on what’s best for them and their upcoming paycheck.
So what’s killing your company culture? How can you cultivate an exciting and inspired workplace? Here are five common culture-killers within credit unions and how you can fix them.
- Ignoring or Oppressing Employee Ideas and Suggestions
No employee feels valued at a credit union when they are not given the chance to comfortably express their ideas for how to improve themselves and the work they do every day. If your employees are only expected to do what they are told, then ultimately their performance and their member engagement will drop significantly.
How To Fix It – Encourage open feedback and creativity. Be open to hearing them out and acting on their suggestions. When they feel the impact of their good ideas, they’ll feel more valued, which will translate into better member interaction and service.
- Micro-management
We all want our team members to be at their best. Everyone’s job within the organization is quite difficult, and we all do our best to keep things as organized as possible while managing everything on the to-do list. Now imagine juggling your tasks while someone is standing right behind you and telling you how to get through your to-do list, how to stay organized, and how to cope with the stress. Nobody, at any level in the organization, wants that.
How To Fix It – Good leaders and managers will provide you the tools needed so you can work how you naturally want to work. When things get rough, they will converse with you on how you can improve. Everyone wins when you point your employees in the right direction while allowing them to forge their own road to success.
- Bad Internal Communication
This is a big stress point around the country, and also one of the main reasons that employees decide to leave their respective credit union. By not focusing on good communication strategies within your organization, you are essentially telling your team that you only care about them getting the job done, not necessarily about how they think or feel. Or at least, in can come off that way, even if unintentional. Bad internal communication can also lead to confusion within the branch, which will lead to mistakes, which will lead to upset members.
How To Fix It – If you are serious about improving internal communication, you need to establish a baseline of how information is shared between employees. Technology will only go so far, so it’s important you make yourself available for conversations and encourage questions. Also, establish a surefire way to get important messages across to the necessary employees. Make sure they are comfortable with reaching out to you and to each other.
- No Accountability
A successful workplace is built on trust. A trust that you can rely on the people that surround you. If someone breaks that trust, they need to be held accountable for it, no matter what level they are within the credit union. When people are not held accountable for their actions, the trust within begins to falter and the workplace is affected in a negative way.
How To Fix It – Creating accountability results in a strong culture that values responsibility. With a high value on responsibility within the organization, your dedicated employees will be more likely to go above and beyond for their teammates and the members that walk into the branch.
- Not Saying Thank You to Your Employees
When employees don’t know that their contribution has meaning, then they won’t thrive. Saying “thank you” is often forgotten about because some leaders view their “thank you” as a signed paycheck. However, the credit unions that thrive internally, are the ones that make it about more than the paycheck.
How To Fix It – Take the time to let your team know the ways that their work matters to you and the credit union as a whole every now and then. This will help keep them engaged, appreciated, and excited about coming into work every day. Take them to lunch, buy them a lottery ticket, improve their work environment, or simply acknowledge them in a meeting. The possibilities are endless.
Good Luck!
Allow your team to buy into your plea for great service by creating a culture that they can thrive in. Additionally, rid yourself of the toxicity that can plague the entire organization. You want your credit union to be a great place to work – a great culture can make that task much easier.
