5. HR. BP.

A Baseball Story Involving Johnny Bench, Home Runs & Batting Practice? No. Instead, Five Credit Union Human Resources Execs Share Their Best Practices

CHARLESTON, S.C.-What are the best human resources practices within credit unions?

During the CUNA HR Council Summit here, five credit unions stepped up to share what they're doing. Here is a look at each:

SYRACUSE, N.Y.-It's not a stinker of an idea, just a stinker of a logo that's in use at Power Federal Credit Union here.

Chrystal F. Moore, assistant director of HR and training, shared with the HR Summit the credit union's Power University, which uses a skunk (nicknamed "Scholar") as its logo in honor of its acronym, "PU."

"The reason we did it was to help with retention, especially on our teller lines. We have seen a reduction in part due to Power University," she said. "It is a way to meet our mission statement with every employee."

Moore joked that one credit union peer had told her that if a job applicant can fog a mirror with his or her breath, they're hired. Power FCU is using PU to take people beyond just that.

Goals Are Four-Fold

According to Moore, everyone at Power Federal, including its board and senior management, participate in its training programs.

The goals of Power University are four-fold:

1.Provide ongoing continuous management development training throughout the organization.

2. Provide all employees with the opportunity to develop their professional skills and thus become a more valuable member of the organization.

3. Integrate core requirements and compliance training into a cohesive structure that is easy to track.

4. Give managers a tool to guide their staff sand evaluate their performances. "Each employee comes with different core requirements, according to position," explained Moore.

Power University has nine different schools, including School of Member Relations, School of Regulatory Compliance, School of Financial Products and Services, School of Professional Development, and a School of Personal Development (staff learned CPR, for instance).

Power Federal uses CUNA's STAR and MERIT Series as part of its curriculum, along with materials (such as videos) that it rents, materials from CUES Online University, from outside consultants, from internal live sources, and more. "When we hire new employees, for four days there are certain things they must go through," explained Moore, noting those employees begin getting PU credits from day one. "We encourage employees to participate with not just the core requirements, but with our bookstore, where they can purchase items after they've accumulated so many credits." Among the items are beach towels, briefcases and other supplies, all with the PU logo.

TAMPA, Fla.-In a session entitled "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Sales Culture," Pat Trachsel, director of HR Services with Tampa Bay FCU, shared her credit union's experience in rewarding employees for improving product sales.

Trachsel noted that there has been a flurry of discussion on developing a sales culture in credit unions on the HR Council listserve, which was one reason for sharing TBFCU's tale.

Why is a sales culture important within a credit union? According to Trachsel, one of the first questions a credit union must ask itself is "Why do we exist?" The answer: to serve members. And who are those members?

"They are the old 80/20 rule, or 20% of members pay the freight for the other 80%," noted Trachsel.

There is an economic cost to that, she said, noting that while Tampa Bay FCU has strong penetration in checking, it lags in auto loans and credit cards. Penetrating either category further will go straight to the bottom line, she said.

But before implementing any sales culture, it must be sold to staff first, said Trachsel, noting that credit unions have "sold" for years, they've just called it "service."

TBFCU's strategy was to develop goals, including putting a retail sales manager in place who would oversee training, coaching and motivation. It also created a commission compensation plan for some, an incentive compensation plan for others, a team orientation (away from being branch oriented), and a book of business.

With the goals established, the credit union looked at its "current reality," that is its structure and operation.

How Change Was Explained

"We determined our strategy was to transition traditional branches to teller sales platforms, to develop job descriptions and to post and fill those positions, to hire a retail sales manager, to put sales relationship software in place, to evaluate and develop commission compensation," and more, she told the meeting.

TBFCU then divided up its "20% members" and assign each of them to individual employees

within the credit union. Those employees essentially became the "personal bankers" for those members, said Trachsel.

One challenge tackled by TBFCU was the perception among many employees, especially front-line staff such as tellers, who believe there is no room for advancement. In addition to the branch manager, other positions were created, such as team leaders, so that there were more rungs on the ladder of advancement.

The Bad & The Ugly

That's the good news, said Trachsel. But the credit union's progress has been stymied by the "bad and the ugly."

"The resistance has come from our long-term associates, those who said 'I wasn't hired to do this,'" observed Trachsel, adding it was overall resistance to change and especially to the idea of "sales" that were the biggest roadblocks.

"Everybody thinks sales has such a nasty reputation," said Trachsel, noting that one credit union in the Tampa market even advertises its "no sales" approach.

"One thing we had not anticipated is that some of the procedures started to slip through the cracks because everybody started to talk about what's in it for me," Trachsel acknowledged. "That's one of the reasons we implemented the team leader, to keep the compliance and implementation from slipping through the cracks."

She said the credit union is still searching for software that meets its needs in terms of tracking sales.

"The ugly part is a vicious circle," said Trachsel. "The old 80/20 rule is still there and the squeaky wheel still gets the grease. And whether we choose to listen and act on the grapevine part of it, it's there alive and well. We lost some good people. Ultimately, it's the employee's choice. We can make all the decisions, but the bottom line is it's up to the associates."

MOON TOWNSHIP, Penn.-Because US Airways FCU here is completely PC-based, a decision was made to ensure employees are PC literate. And to accomplish that, the credit union began last year to reimburse up to $500 any employee who goes out and purchases a s new PC.

According to Mark Brennan, VP-HR and Training, in its first year 93 employees participated (it's open to full and part-time staff), or 40% of its staff. To participate, an employee must be with the credit union for six months and be in good standing. The employee provides a receipt and is then reimbursed.

"By paying a portion of the PC price, we figured we would incent the staff to go out and get a PC," Brennan told the CUNA HR Council Summit.

There are caveats to the program: if an employee resigns, retires or is terminated prior to six months of employment after the reimbursement process date, the employee must reimburse the credit union in full. "If the credit union is going to invest in them, we expect them to invest in us," he said.

"It has been probably the best-received program we have done. It is a very simple program, but you are telling your staff you really want them to get PCs," he explained. "We have noticed even in a one-year time period that people have improved their PC skills, and that was our goal. I anticipate that in the next year we'll get to 80% (participation)."

US Airways FCU also has a program in which it sells its own used PCs to employees at deep discounts.

For now, the credit union's program is a one-time payment. But Brennan said it may adjust the program to reimburse once every three years.

What about tech support? That has been a downside, acknowledged Brennan. The credit union's DP department has been barraged with technical questions from staff who have bought a PC. Staff has been directed to not bother the credit union's DP staff with questions.

One credit union in the audience with a similar PC program noted that it is generally PC-literate employees who have been purchasing the PCs, which defeats somewhat the goal of getting novices to buy a machine.

Another reported its credit union makes 0% APR computer loans up to $3,000 and that it has been "extremely popular" with employees.

In that case, if an employee leaves prior to the loan being reimbursed, the rate reverts to market.

PALO ALTO, Calif.-Long a leader in technology, Stanford Federal Credit Union has applied the concept of portable education in new ways.

Michael Hiller, VP-administration/HR with SFCU, told the CUNA HR Summit that the credit union set out not to create a place to go to for information or education, but to create personal pages that would go with the employee anywhere "with all the tools you needed to do your job."

To that end, SFCU hired a new employee whose job was and is to create a "desktop" for each employee.

Employees can select their own icons, links and more in order to personalize the desktop. Essentially, each employee has their own home page within the credit union.

Phyllis Massing, Employee Education Specialist with SFCU, who was on hand for the Summit, shared with the audience her home page, which she uses to train staff. It includes PowerPoint presentations, Flash presentations and more, all as part of its Employee Resource Center (ERC). Massing then logs onto that page anytime she is making presentations to staff on any of a variety of subjects. Topics don't just include specific products like GAP insurance, but topics such as professionalism. Throughout, said Massing, every effort is made to have fun where it is appropriate. For instance, it includes humorous TV commercials.

Employees are given a compact disk with their information on it. "The point I want to make is you can take $300 and go buy a CD burner and you can use your Powerpoint presentations and a web builder, and for $500 you're in business," said Hiller. "You can bring your whole world to your employee's desktop."

RIVERDALE, Utah-America First Credit Union here is making every effort to go paperless.

Kent Streuling, HR administrator, shared with the CUNA HR Summit his credit union's experience in creating an Intranet to replace all the paper-based forms it previously used.

"This really isn't rocket science," said Streuling, "but we made a statement to our members that we would be the premier provider of online services in the state of Utah, and we decided to back that up with our employees by going paperless."

That meant that every employee had to go through everything they did and was tasked with doing everything they could electronically. Today, when an employee arrives at work each day, they see the credit union's Intranet page first.

The credit union had been offering Internet access to employees, but that has since been restricted.

Today, every form within the credit union has been put into electronic form.

"We're not 100% paperless yet, but we're not using 100-million pieces of paper either," said Streuling.

Forms can be downloaded and printed if necessary; for instance, on those that require two signatures. All forms are stored as PDF files.

"It does for our employees what home banking did for our members," explained Strueling. "It puts at their fingertips the ability to get any information they need. The HR department is not going to be a data entry department any more. We're pushing that down to them."

One interesting Intranet application: Pictures of staff are included so that each member of management can see each person who reports to them.