There are several workplace trends that will affect how your credit union weathers 2022 and beyond. One of the most significant is the competition for attracting and retaining talent. 2021 saw the Great Resignation, a movement characterized by massive amounts of people quitting their jobs to look for work that better suits their lifestyle.

So, what can you do to keep your credit union adequately staffed? Let’s go through some leadership tactics for managing credit union employee turnover.

Do Your Retention Research

Though it is an incredibly useful tool, many companies don’t conduct exit interviews, either in certain instances or at all.

There are many ways to use your own workforce to discover insights into curbing employee turnover trends. It’s important to open more lines of communication between all levels of employees when it comes to expectations, compensation, and conflict resolution.

Employees are quicker than ever to leave a company if they feel they aren’t being heard or treated fairly. Your first move in curbing credit union employee turnover should be to implement strategies and opportunities for staff members to share thoughts and concerns with leadership teams. And these opportunities should be presented in a way that is actionable and truly taken seriously.

Some things to think about:

• How do employees view communication channels between themselves and your credit union? Are they effective, transparent, and impactful?
• How do your employees feel about their roles and responsibilities? Have their feelings changed recently? What has caused those changes?
• Are there improvements that could be made to help foster communication between leaders, employees, and peers?

Evaluate Management Protocols & Training

Employee turnover is often caused by negative relationships between employees and management and a lack of trust in an organization.

When it comes to improving these relationships, it’s important to know what you are working with in the beginning. Do your management teams have training that allows them to resolve conflict effectively? Or are you just leaving your managers to use their best judgment and escalate issues to HR if they are uncomfortable continuing certain conversations?

Evaluating your management protocols and training in regard to communication and transparency is a critical piece of the credit union employee retention plan.

Employees don’t leave bad companies; they leave bad managers. And this is truer than ever. Employee engagement can be tough, and stagnation can happen at all levels of leadership. That’s why manager training should be refreshed periodically to improve managers’ emotional intelligence levels as well as their interpersonal skills.

Your managers (should) already demonstrate that they can manage credit union employees and operations. The training they need is more valuable when it’s focused on how to effectively manage and evaluate people and their emotions.

Focus on Fostering Purpose and Upholding Values

Credit union employee turnover goes down when individuals feel like they have a strong purpose and direction driving their work. While we can’t all have jobs where we save lives or help people in need, there are many ways to instill a sense of individual purpose in your employees.

Leaders should foster interactions where each employee is being recognized for fulfilling their professional purpose. We can take a hint from the number of nurses who are upset at having worked through a global pandemic and then being rewarded with tumblers or pizza parties. Efforts should be put forth to create meaningful recognition of individual employee purpose.

Another way to foster purpose and instill a sense of integrity is to make sure employees at all levels of leadership are upholding the values that adorn your walls and websites. If your mission, vision, and values don’t match your work environment, credit union employee retention gets much harder.

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