Across the oil and gas fields in Texas and Oklahoma, workers typically start with low six-figure salaries. McDonald's restaurants in Odessa and Midland, Texas are paying employees $15 an hour just to flip and serve burgers. The fast food restaurant has even bused in employees from other cities because they couldn't find enough workers in the Odessa and Midland areas, according to Grady.

Just to hold on to tellers, credit unions have had to raise their hourly rates and move more tellers to full-time status to provide them with benefits.

"You can imagine how the compensation costs began to creep upwards," Grady said. "It's still kind of going on."

Although market oil prices have been dropping and energy companies have been laying off employees, the demand for energy remains steady. Some downsizing continues to take place in the energy industry, but massive layoff announcements are mostly over, according to a July economic report from the Dallas Federal Reserve.

Nonetheless, even more job gains are expected in Texas because major corporations including Toyota, Facebook, Liberty Mutual and State Farm have plans to move into the northern region of the state. That strong economic growth, however, is expected to create even more employee turnover headaches for credit unions, Grady said.

Since Jean Nicole Torans-Dominguez took over the $55 million West Texas Educators Credit Union in Odessa in October 2012, she has maintained a 90% employee retention rate. And despite the very tight labor market in her area, she managed to increase the credit union's number of employees from 12 to 20.

"We do have certain things in place to try to make our environment a little more fun, a little more carefree, than most oil field companies are able to," she said. "I think in some of our higher level positions, such as senior loan officers, we are able to retain them because of the incentives we offer, because I know they could go to an oil field company and make double what they make here."

To keep employees engaged, West Texas Educators CU sponsors events such as bowling, dinners and happy hours for employees and their families. Occasionally, employees are treated with a trip to Dairy Queen or Starbucks. Plus, when they provide exceptional member service, they are given a $5 Starbucks gift card.

While bringing in and keeping new employees has increased compensation and benefits costs from $534,000 in 2012 to $1 million in 2014, loan volume has substantially spiked from $10 million in 2012 to more than $30 million in 2014 at credit unions, according to NCUA financial performance reports.

Even though her credit union's pay and benefits are more competitive today, Torans-Dominguez admits she still can't compete with the banks.

For Mignhon Tourne, president/CEO of the $322 million ASI Federal Credit Union, breaking out with a song and dance anywhere and at any time is considered one of her best practices to keep her employees happy and working at the Harahan, La.-based cooperative.

This, along with several other things that the credit union leverages to retain employees, is apparently working. The credit union's employee turnover rate hovered around 5% to 6% in the first half of the year, which is well below the national 12% employee turnover rate at credit unions.

About three years ago, ASI FCU set out to transform its culture by adopting the business quality principles developed by the legendary W. Edwards Deming, who is credited with launching the worldwide industrial quality movement that many leaders in the services industry have also adopted. Employee turnover is one key metric, among many others, that Tourne keeps an eye on and reports quarterly to the board.

ASI FCU places a strong emphasis on training, team building and creating a work environment with high ethical standards, openness and fun. The credit union also adopted the Deming's principle of continuous improvement of involving all employees to make and develop recommendations, which as a result, improves everyday workflow and operations to increase efficiency and productivity.

"Part of the quality movement focuses on listening to employees and not just letting managers always drive decisions," she explained. "In 2014, we had 63 process improvements and most of those came from frontline employees, and so far in 2015, we've had 119 process improvements. Our employees love that engagement. They love knowing they have a voice in making the organization better to support our member owners."

All of that hard work paid off for ASI FCU when it was named earlier this year as one of 2015′s top workplaces by The Times-Picayune, Louisiana's largest newspaper.

For the third year in a row, the $717 million First Florida Credit Union was also named as one of the state's best workplaces by Florida Trends magazine.

Even so, Brent Lister, president/CEO of the Jacksonville-based credit union, doesn't focus on the employee turnover metric because it hasn't hampered the credit union's growth.

Lister wishes employee turnover rates weren't so high among frontline employees, such as tellers and call center member service representatives, but the reality of it is much different.

"It's just a realization that we are going to have more turnover on the front lines just by the nature of those jobs and where people are in their lifecycle of employment," Lister said. "I don't concentrate much on the retention rate because we haven't seen an issue with that. Based off of these top workplace surveys and winning those awards, we hope that we have created an atmosphere for employees to feel successful, that they are engaged and are doing positive things within their jobs."