Building a better bench helps CUs sail forward
The workforce has changed, but the need for an effective management team remains the same.
Keeping pace with rapid changes in the economy and financial services industry is a challenge for today’s credit unions. CUs need to be agile in responding to the competition. They must stay current with technology, elevate their service levels to satisfy members and be diligent about compliance issues. This requires a strong, talented workforce—but the workforce itself has big questions that CUs can’t ignore: where employees will work, how they will work, how they will interact with peers and leaders, and how they can develop skills to match the changing nature of their jobs.
“Workforce challenges are constantly evolving,” says Stacey Collins, SPHR, CCXP, chief experience officer of $437 million Dutch Point Credit Union, based in Wethersfield, Connecticut. “It’s a fluid situation. We need to continuously respond to whatever the next workplace challenge may be.”
The workforce underwent a major transition at the onset of the pandemic, with remote and hybrid models becoming firmly entrenched and transforming organizational dynamics. “For a long time, workforce management—how we attract talent, develop talent and manage the employer/employee relationship—was very traditional,” says Collins, an experienced credit union leader whose diverse career in operations, business strategy and talent development spans more than 20 years. “Then COVID happened, and it shook everything up. It gave people the opportunity to experience different ways of working. It was a great experiment that we could have never pulled off without a pandemic.”
continue reading »
