The $5.8 billion San Diego County Credit Union recently won the Crystal Award for workplace excellence from the Society of Human Resource Management's San Diego chapter.

SDCCU was recognized by SHRM for the credit union's implementation of its “standard of excellence plan,” which has substantially improved the credit union's employee culture and performance. The standard of excellence plan focuses on critical thinking and decision making that in turn has helped improve customer service levels throughout the organization, according to SDCCU.

“We're proud to be honored with SHRM's Crystal Award as it highlighted our management team's innovation, commitment and hard work,” said SDCCU President/CEO Teresa Halleck.

Since Halleck took over SDCCU's helm in August 2010, the management team has been focused almost exclusively on improving its customer service experience, which has helped increase the credit union's membership rolls, the credit union said.  The credit union's membership has grown from 224,729 on Dec. 31, 2011, to 238,789 on Sept. 30, 2012, according to SDCCU.