The NAFCU Journal: Balancing Act

From cash incentives to flextime, credit union executives understand that supporting employees’ work-life balance is also best for business

By M. Diane McCormick

Successful businesses across all industries deploy work-life balance initiatives as a tool to attract and retain dedicated, talented employees. But for credit unions, it’s more than a strategy. Helping staff members feel good about themselves, their workplace and their community is a long-standing tradition and a core belief.

“If you have happy employees, you’re going to have happier members, because employees are glad and willing and happy to service them,” says Greg Hill, the chief human resources officer for PrimeWay Federal Credit Union.

While employees make daily tradeoff s between home and job, credit union leaders can ease that tension with the right office culture and benefits package. It’s a balance each credit union strikes through a unique combination of compensation, rewards and flexible work policies, along with offering employees ample volunteer opportunities and the freedom to unplug. The process is multifaceted, but once it’s in gear, employees are energized, focused and committed to prime member service.

Compensation and Rewards

Like all businesses today, credit unions are immersed in the “overarching war for talent,” says Credit Union Executives Society (CUES) President and CEO John Pembroke. “When it comes to ways to attract and retain talent, work-life balance can be a competitive advantage,” he says. “It is a way credit unions can differentiate themselves from other organizations.”

In the work-life balance equation, competitive salaries and benefits remain key factors. Aft er Hill arrived at Houston- based PrimeWay, he got the go-ahead to review compensation, contracting a third-party vendor to evaluate every position “top to bottom and side to side.” Th at process repeats annually, with salary reviews leading to adjustments as needed.

Arkansas Federal Credit Union crafted a supportive benefits package, paying 100 percent of baseline employee benefits and contributing to health savings accounts (HSAs). It’s a package based on the understanding that investing in employee benefit helps lift some of the financial strain that can sap productivity, says Heather Savage, Arkansas Federal’s senior vice president for human resources.

“If we can remove as much of that financial struggle as possible, then we can keep our employees more engaged, more motivated and more productive,” she says.

Arkansas Federal also offers a broad range of options and vendors for voluntary supplemental benefits.

Sean Zimmerman, CEO, Congressional Federal Credit Union

"I don’t want to tell someone what benefits are going to work best for their families," Savage says. “I want them to have that decision to make for themselves.”

For credit unions cultivating work-life balance, recognition programs take on added significance. Increasingly, they are structured and operating on fully automated platforms that deliver tangible rewards, Pembroke says.

“The more specific and the more timely, the more it’s appreciated,” he says. “Recognizing people for the good things they are doing and using them as examples of work-life balance can help others understand how they can achieve it.”

HEATHER SAVAGE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR HUMAN RESOURCES, ARKANSAS FEDERAL CREDIT UNION

Some credit unions are adopting the Kazoo — an HR software platform — recognition and rewards program. At Arkansas Federal, a 76 percent utilization rate of Kazoo is “a really big win,” says Kari George, the credit union’s organizational development specialist. Employees and managers earn and dispense points, designed with flexible and customized redemption options. Rewards include gift cards or mentoring sessions with organization executives. Th ey can also encourage such positive behavior and cross-department interaction as donating to the quarterly blood drive.

“What I was hoping for and am beginning to see is that employees see how they impact each other,” George says. “Different departments and branches are recognizing each other. We’re seeing how it takes each of us here to be successful and how we impact each other’s daily lives.”

Reasonable expectations and realistic project timelines also contribute to work-life balance by deflating stress levels, Pembroke says. Congressional Federal Credit Union CEO Sean Zimmermann believes quality of work can trump time spent at the office.

“Too often, people focus on the number of hours spent at the office, and that’s not necessarily an effective measure of work performance,” he says. “I have seen many people over my career who worked long hours. It was a detriment to their own work-life balance, and they weren’t necessarily better employees. At times, it turned out to be bad for them and bad for the organization.”

Unplugging

As technology has begun to occupy every corner of business, work has seeped into personal lives, making it seem impossible to unplug from the office. But today’s credit union leaders are deliberately creating expectations in which stopping the work clock is a cultural norm.

The call to unplug “has to be driven from the top down, or it’s really just lip service,” Hill says. “If I’m out, my CEO will not barrage me with emails or issues or problems, because she wants me to enjoy my time off. We encourage our managers to take that same approach. When people have time off, they should have time off.”

At Arkansas Federal, personal time off is “a sacred thing,” Savage says. Employees on vacation are not to be disturbed. Team members who are asked a question typically fielded by absent colleagues “will work hard to find the answer without ever having to reach out,” she says. “It empowers employees to think outside the box and find the answers themselves.”

Washington, D.C.-based Congressional Federal emphasizes cross-training, which gives colleagues the competencies to step in for each other. “The workflow proceeds smoothly even if someone is taking a day off, and employees appreciate the opportunity to learn new functions,” says Vanessa Gregory, vice president of human resources.

Another Congressional Federal policy requires vacationing employees to stay away from the office for a full 40 hours.

“When people really do unplug, they appear to be refreshed and ready to go when they return,” Gregory says.

To maintain that rejuvenation, Zimmermann urges his team “not to pounce on somebody the moment they get back.” Let employees filter through backlogged emails for a day instead of immediately piling on demands, which can all too quickly reverse the relaxation gained during disconnect time, he says.

Proactive credit unions also create opportunities for employees to unplug outside the work environment for multiple benefits. Department outings, holiday parties, team-building exercises, baseball games, fitness challenges — they all allow employees to step away from work duties while building relationships across departments.

Making Time for Life Events

Flexible workplace policies offer competitive advantages in attracting and retaining talent, and credit unions are crafting dual-purpose policies that address their business needs and the outside demands heaped on personnel.

For many organizations, it starts with generous paid-time-off policies, allowing employees to address personal challenges and bank PTO for emergencies. Many “big-hearted employees” of Arkansas Federal donate unused PTO for colleagues in need — and past recipients are “absolutely the first to raise their hand when someone needs it,” Savage says. A key here is that crises don’t force valued employees out of a job: “They have a career at the credit union because JOHN PEMBROKE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, CREDIT UNION EXECUTIVES SOCIETY we have a policy to do that.”

At PrimeWay, employees who worked remotely through the devastation of Hurricane Harvey in 2017 received compensatory time, while others got PTO “to get their affairs in order,” Hill says. “Little things like that go a long way to keep employees focused and engaged.”

Other policies that help to balance work and home life include:

Telecommuting: Not every position can be refashioned for telecommuting, but credit unions make it work when
appropriate. Among Arkansas Federal’s “amazing employees” are military spouses who have been retained
through telecommuting arrangements developed after transfer orders arrive, Savage says.
4/10 Workweek: Though it’s not suitable for front-office staff, back-office personnel appreciate the chance to
work 10-hour days, four days a week.
Flextime: If a branch is overstaffed, managers have the authority to seek volunteers to leave early. At Arkansas
Federal, employees reach full-time status at 32 hours a week, opening eight hours of flextime “if the need
arises,” Savage says.

Focusing on the tasks that must get done and building trust in the team are crucial to the success of flextime, Pembroke says. Plus, there are advantages, such as telecommuters equipped for business as usual when bad weather breaks.

“If you make it a priority, if it’s something you focus on, it’s something that can be attained,” he says. “You have to think about the best way to position employees to accomplish it based on their roles in the organization and what needs to be done.”

Promoting the workplace as a learning organization is another critical engagement tool. Congressional Federal pays for seminars, subsidizes tuition, and offers online courses through LinkedIn Learning. Employees, Zimmermann says, “want to learn.”

Not only that, but employees immersed in continuous learning are likelier to share ideas, and “they understand the value and importance of each of their respective roles and how they are aligned within the organization, so they can collectively focus on serving our members,” adds Gregory. “If employees are engaged, they typically are happier and feel empowered.”

Strategic Thinking

The trick to driving an effective work-life balance is making sure the scales really are evenly balanced, Pembroke says. One shouldn’t overwhelm the other. Successful credit unions implement “deliberate, well-thought-out talent management strategies” that align with overall business strategies.

“Your actions have to match your words,” he says. “If you’re going to use this as a way to differentiate yourself in the war for talent, you need to have awareness and planning on how you’re going to achieve it.”

Congressional Federal’s strategic plan, revised in 2018, incorporates human resources as a cornerstone. With the elevation of the credit union’s longtime work-life balance commitment to strategic-plan level, employees feel “more valued, more engaged, so they know we’re doing the best we can on their behalf,” Zimmermann says.

When PrimeWay compared its employee engagement against peer organizations, the credit union “came out above peers in every category,” Hill says. Its methodical approach — “locked in” on technology and HR trends — is yielding results in steadily rising member satisfaction. Even employees who left PrimeWay for various reasons are returning in noticeable numbers — 20 in three years, representing one-fourth of those who have left.

“You feel like the care and the time you take to plan these initiatives really come to fruition when employees give you their feedback and say they’re really satisfied with their workplace,” he says.

M. Diane McCormick is a Pennsylvania-based freelance journalist and a frequent contributor to The NAFCU Journal.