SAN JOSE, Calif. — Deborah Sunderman admits that managing nine employees can be challenging — but not due to the numbers.
Sunderman, branch manager for Xceed Financial CU here, runs two offices that are a 15-minute drive apart.
"That's a 15-minute drive on a good day with no traffic," kidded Sunderman. "Running two offices might have seemed new to me at first, but it comes down to scheduling staff and coming in at each location as I'm needed. I hop between both branches at any given time. Personally, it's more interesting when you pop in unexpectedly and see how people are doing."
Sunderman said she has the job under control. She has managed the Skyport branch since late last year, when she joined the $769-million Xceed, headquartered in El Segundo, Calif. She took over running the new Plant office, which sits inside the Plant Shopping Center complex that sprung up on a site where GE "The Plant opened last December and Xceed is expanding in this area. So the credit union decided to see how things go with one manager for two locations, before hiring a secondary manager. Right now I don't have an assistant manager and the job has been manageable."
One of the reasons Sunderman attributes needing only one in command is staying away from micromanaging staff. "From day one I told my team that I trust them to do their job," she said. "I have given them clear expectations on what needs to be done and I expect them to be responsible for themselves and their work. Down the road, if anyone is not meeting those expectations and they need me to be a micromanager, now that's a different story. But I really put the onus on my associates, which helps them make sound decisions when I'm not around."
The branches Sunderman manages in San Jose, a desert community in the heart of Silicon Valley, are not the same in appearance. "Skyport, next to the San Jose Airport, has been here since 2004. And in April of 2008 we changed our name from Xerox CU to Xceed Financial (Credit Union Journal, February 25, 2008). The Plant, right now, is more of a traditional branch. Skyport has our new look and feel. It's more of a relaxed environment. We have chairs in our teller lines instead of a cold counter, so members can sit down and talk with our staff."
Sunderman stressed that her team has been trained to be good listeners. "Our associates know to let our members do the majority of the talking. I am not someone who believes in pushing services on members that don't make sense for them, or really pushing sales in general. I'd rather our staff hear what members want, listening carefully for clues about what they need, and then make the best recommendation."
That's part of the job that Sunderman enjoys performing herself. "I get no greater joy than sitting down with someone and asking what they have going on. If it's the first time I met them I want to know more about their life, and then we talk about finances and what they want to get out of their credit union. I just enjoy those challenging situations where a member really needs to turn their financial life around, and then I see them take my advice and work their way through a tough situation."
This special report on Branch Management is reported by Ray Birch.
