JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — Automating branch scheduling here has saved Marine Federal Credit Union more than $200,000 annually.
After years of manually compiling transaction and labor-cost trending reports, the $700 million credit union started looking for a software solution that could streamline the process while saving money.
"A lot goes into collecting and preparing our transaction data on a continuous basis," said Ryan Lycans, Marine FCU's vice president of branch operations. "We had all but given up on getting information like labor costs per transaction and individual employee metrics, when we learned of FMSI's solution. I was like a kid at a candy store when we started receiving this powerful information on a monthly basis from FMSI."
Last year, Marine FCU, which has about 290 full-time and 20 part-time employees, adopted FMSI's Branch Staff Reporting and Scheduler. The CU quickly realized the software could do what manual processes could not.
"They had become accustomed to scheduling around their employee needs as opposed to their members," said FMSI President/CEO W. Michael Scott. "This is an obstacle that FMSI has witnessed many financial institutions struggle with."
Scott explained that the Branch Staff Reporting and Scheduler works with the CU's core system collecting and preparing transaction data from front-line employees. The data is transferred into easy-to-read and actionable business intelligence. "Maintaining teller staffing at the ideal level to ensure customer satisfaction can sometimes be a very credit union specific decision."
Since rolling out the solution, FMSI has recommended adjusting branch hours at several of Marine FCU branches, which has totaled $200,000 in annualized labor cost savings. Additionally, Lycans said that by adjusting some Saturday hours at a few of its low-volume-branch hours, the CU realized $64,000 in annualized savings.
"Not only does it save us a tremendous amount of time preparing and handling our employee schedules, but it also helps us better align our staff with our actual member traffic during the right days and times during the day," said Lycans. "This is particularly helpful when assigning our part-time staffers, which we've learned can be very costly if not done properly."
