Where have all the credit union leaders gone?
From ‘war for talent’ to hiring freezes and layoffs
By Sarah Snell Cooke, Cooke Consulting Solutions
The war for talent was already a thing before COVID hit. During the height of the pandemic, many of us re-thought our life choices. Do we move to a less populated area? Some lost their jobs and moved to less expensive locations.
We got cozy working remotely. To be fair, I’ve been pretty comfy with it since 1999. I don’t want to commute to an office, particularly in the DC area, and I did do that for a few years here and there. Today, I’d say see ya – as many did during and following the COVID pandemic’s peak.
We’ve re-evaluated what we want our lives to look like, and for many of us that doesn’t include a 30- to 90-minute one-way commute that’s a waste of our own time and money. For others, it might have been the nudge to retire or consider lifestyle changes, trading in blistering winters for warm breezes or ludicrous property and other taxes for a lower rate and slower pace.
Credit union leadership and the evolving workforce
Job openings in general skyrocketed during COVID, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and have only inched back down. According to Shanley Search Partners, some credit union executives who left during the pandemic are finding their way back into the workforce. The market is particularly tight, aka expensive for IT talent.
However, CEO Charles Shanley said the biggest challenge right now is inflation. Some credit unions have instituted hiring freezes, while others have made headlines with sizeable layoffs.
“Factors affecting the state of hiring in 2023 include high inflation, a shrinking talent pool spurred on by the Great Resignation, a competitive hiring market with elevated salaries, the desire by many to continue working remotely, the unrelenting push toward digital innovation and, if that weren’t enough, talk of an impending recession,” he wrote recently.
Team members are not the only thing in short supply. So are certain skill sets. Typically, those of the softer persuasion. Even when candidates for a job opening materialize, hiring managers are seeing “a lack of resilience, adaptability, problem-solving ability and critical-thinking skills as recent candidate shortcomings.”
The intense, national focus on STEM, and there’s nothing wrong with STEM careers at all, but more tangible, obvious-ROI educational opportunities are a big part of what led us to this point. I digress, but not really. The other thing that’s happening in credit unions is as they grow larger, more C-suite positions are created that can further compartmentalize development opportunities and, thus strategic leadership development is less diverse.
How credit unions develop leaders
Leadership development always bring me back to my first weeks and months as a new manager. I hadn’t been in the role long, and corporate announced a leadership training session and flew all the managers across the company to its headquarters. I’m sure it cost a good bit.
I was so excited to learn how to lead the people on my team and network with my colleagues. I had experienced many different leaders and could piece together what I liked and didn’t like, but how to step into authority after having been a peer without becoming a douche was important to me, too.
Did I get the opportunity to network with other managers and discuss how they led their teams? Nope. Did a local business guru come in to talk about what success looks like and how to help nudge your team in the right direction? Not even a little.
There were probably 75 people in an auditorium-style room in corporate listening to a lawyer for hours talk about – and reiterate – how not to grab someone’s ass. It definitely took the wind out of my sales as a brand-new leader. This didn’t happen in a credit union, but I understand it’s not uncommon in the credit union community either.
I recently talked with Phroogal CEO Jason Vitug about why he and others love credit unions but are leaving to work for more nimble companies that are credit union adjacent. Here’s the content in case you missed it.
Bo McDonald, credit union advocate and entrepreneur (founder and CEO of both Your Marketing Co. and uncommn) and host of The Accidental Leader podcast, shared a story on a recent episode in which he let a good employee go because they wanted to be a leader, but their root system held them back, giving them a victim mentality. In an earlier episode, he explained a person’s root system is a combination of the environments and people they grew up with and have worked with and for.
I admit when I was younger, I fell into the victimhood trap; recognizing and changing it is what matters. My story of that particular shift for me happened to occur at a credit union event. I was attending a CU4Kids event in my mid 20s and then-Navy Federal Credit Union CEO Cutler Dawson called me out when I said I hadn’t voted, because I failed to update my driver’s license after we moved. I added that my husband, who was there as a freelance photographer, only did it because his license was due for renewal. Cutler’s voice and face in that moment still haunt me. He said, “He voted, because he did what he was supposed to do.”
It was a relatively small thing, but it was the point that I began recognizing, acknowledging and changing that mindset. Fortunately, I had a retired Navy Vice Admiral and CEO of the largest credit union in the world give me a swift kick in the pants.
As Bo said during his podcast, “I don’t believe anyone doesn’t want to be better. It’s a matter of the crap is in their root system that’s putting that head trash there.” Love the phrase ‘head trash.’
The Accidental leader guest that episode was Leadership Coach Brian Rollo, who quoted Tolstoy: Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves. We have to lead ourselves before we can lead others, he emphasized.
“You have to hold yourself accountable and have self-awareness and that’s half the battle,” Rollo suggested. Once you can do that, it builds trust with your team. He recommended writing the words Accountability, Communication and Trust and asking those around you to honestly rate you in each of these categories to discover areas for improvement.
Frank Allgood, Your Marketing Co. VP of relationship development, advised in a company blog that the way credit unions view recruitment (and organizational roles and responsibilities) has to change. He shared in the blog how Your Marketing Co. suggested to its credit union clients that employees share their credit union’s job postings. One (unnamed) credit union responded that would be highly inappropriate. That’s HR’s role. He explained that credit union had 17% of its positions open for quite some time and couldn’t wrap its organizational mind around trying something new.
Frank continued, adding, “What’s the No. 1 hiring method? Studies show employee referrals are five times more efficient than other sourcing alternatives.” Employee referrals, however, only comprise 7% of overall job applicants and about 40% of these employee referrals are hired.
That disconnect is staggering. Especially at a time when credit unions are scrapping to bring on employees, struggling to make employees fall in love with the credit union community as they did in days gone by, and retain employees (How much fun would it be to work with a friend you referred, to be given that level of input and respect?!), we have to open our minds to new ways of thinking and operating, or we’re going to see more young people, like Jason and countless others, leaving employment in credit unions despite their love for credit unions. Credit unions must be employers of choice to be members’ financial institution of choice.