At Vibrant, we value our employees. In fact, you could say we're crazy about our employees. We take an active interest in the lives of Vibrant employees and believe in putting our people first, making them our top priority. By focusing on our people, it's our members that benefit.
To put it simple, we think happy, healthy employees work better. It's good for business.
A teller or frontline staff member is more likely to engage with members, provide awesome service, and care about our members' experience overall if he or she is happy. And part of being happy is feeling healthy. We want our employees to come into work in tip top shape so they can in turn provide that over the top great experience to our members.
We can't expect our employees to put a smile on every member's face if they aren't even smiling on their own. So it's our job to do the best we can to make sure those pearly whites are showing. We are constantly ensuring our employees have a positive workplace that impacts their well-being in a positive way. Our culture here at Vibrant is built around this basic concept.
According to an internal survey we conducted, 74% of Vibrant employees see themselves working here at Vibrant for their entire career. What makes this number really interesting is that 85% of our workforce is under the age of 40. Our employees genuinely like coming to work every day and are in it for the long haul. We pride ourselves on that and we think it's proof that we're doing something right.
We truly believe and have proved that creating a happy work environment will translate to better business. Vibrant continues to be one of the fastest growing consumer lending, real estate lending and branch location organizations in the financial services industry. How do we do it? That's easy – with a culture dedicated to member service through a surprisingly different experience.
To best provide our employees the opportunity to be happy and healthy, we recently added a 24-hour gym to our corporate center. Healthy employees tend to be happier and more productive employees. We know that sometimes everyone needs a little motivation to get the ball rolling, so we brought the gym to the workplace. All employees have access and are welcome to work out before work, after work or during their lunch. It's equipped with dumbbells, treadmills, ellipticals, bikes and a rowing machine – basically anything you would need to get your workout on.
Not only does working out make our employees healthier, it also creates camaraderie. Many times employees can be found working out in a group. This is a whole new way for employees to get to know each other rather than just through the normal work day experience. New friendships are formed and employees actually talk to each other, about real things. I don't know about you, but friendships sure do make me happy! Not only that, but employees are more likely to reach out to others regarding an issue or question during the work day.
Another fun fact we found in our internal survey is that 73% of our employees feel like they have a best friend at work. That's great! Our employees genuinely like being around each other. We hope the gym will be another great place for those friendships to be created.
Through our unique approach, Vibrant is experiencing record growth in overall member relationships. In the last quarter, our new member growth was 7.5%. In December alone, new member growth reached the double digits! Vibrant ranks in the top 8% in the country for overall return on member value and in the top 10% for depth of wallet. Our average services per household is more than twice than at the average credit union.
If this isn't evidence that there is a link between employee well-being and happiness and workplace performance, than we don't know what is! Now you know why at Vibrant, we just can't help but smile.
Danielle Blocker is marketing coordinator for Vibrant Credit Union. She can be reached at 309-796-4087 or [email protected].
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