Does Your Credit Union’s Culture Extend to New Recruits?

Ask a CEO what their biggest challenge is and “talent” will be one of the first answers you hear. Attracting (and keeping) good people is a colossal effort for most organizations.

This isn’t anecdotal. According to a Deloitte global survey of financial services executives in 2017, a quarter of financial services institutions in the G7 expect to face operational talent shortages in the long term, with the biggest current and short-term talent shortages in innovation (43%), sales (41%), and risk and compliance (40%).

And once positions have been filled, the hard work isn’t over: Making sure recruits want to stay is just as crucial, if not more so. Retention is cheaper than hiring, what with the cost of training, handover, lost productivity and sales, and the impact on team dynamic and client relationships.

But there is a solution: Workers and employers overwhelmingly agree that the cornerstone of staff retention is culture.

Three in 10 (30%) have left a job within the first 90 days of starting according to a 2018 survey of 1,500 U.S. jobseekers by Jobvite. Of these, almost a third (32%) cited bad company culture. The same study found the vast majority (88%) of job seekers agree culture is at least of relative importance when applying to a company, while 46% claim it’s very important. And 15% have even turned down a job offer because of the company culture.

More than eight in 10 CEOs and HR leaders believe culture gives businesses a potential competitive advantage, according to Deloitte’s 2016 Global Human Capital Trends survey. But it also revealed culture may be hard to pin down: Just 28% believe they understand their culture well, while only 19% believe their company has the “right” culture.

Organizations can forget company culture does not only exist in the four walls of the office. It needs to reach remote workers inhabiting the digital workplace, it needs to permeate through to member transactions and conversations with colleagues, and it should be visible in every step of the hiring process.

Without that consistency in all communication, and without that dedication to transmitting what your credit union brand stands for, your carefully-thought-out culture probably isn’t having the reach that it could.

Here are four areas where your culture can have a powerful impact on new staff. Has your credit union overlooked them?

Attracting Talent

Before a strong candidate applies for a job, you can bet they’ve been doing their homework. They’ll have studied your website and company blog, checked your LinkedIn company page, read public posts written by your own employees, searched for press articles online and browsed sites like Glassdoor where staff can anonymously review what it’s really like to work for your organization.

Every possible touchpoint needs to have your culture stamped on it – whether that’s a fervent commitment to inclusion and diversity, health and well-being, fun, innovation or flexible working. Scrutinize any content already in the public domain that captures your culture, and see where there’s still work to be done via marketing, PR, content and branding.

Hiring Process

Those same cultural tropes need to be carried right through the hiring process, and be reflected and repeated in your job advertisement, the interview room and all correspondence with a new recruit. Making sure hiring policies and procedures are updated and accessible in the digital workplace is advised.

That level of consistency and attention to detail will mean no new employee is left wondering what’s expected of them or what they’re walking into. If you’re truly committed to diversity, leaning on a single clause in a hiring policy and never mentioning it again just isn’t going to cut it.

Onboarding

A personalized welcome page hosted on your intranet can work as a hub for everything a new recruit needs, from access to the HR self-service portal and e-learning videos with all the crucial information they need to do their jobs, to messages of support from colleagues, and “insider tips” on how to find the coffee station, scanner and restrooms.

New employees only have one shot to make a great first impression – and so do you. Better onboarding can improve employee retention in the early months of employment and diminish the chances of them regretting their decision. It also frees up time so they can start bonding with their team instead of having to hunt down IT to get their laptop up and running.

Brand Ambassadors

Every single credit union has brand ambassadors, whether you monitor what they’re up to or not. These are, simply, your workers. Through their own social networks they have the power and reach to turn an interested person into a new recruit, simply by sharing what it’s like to work for you.

You can steer that conversation by suggesting timely themes, running mini campaigns and creating hashtags, whether it’s to raise awareness of a culture that promotes good health and well-being on World Mental Health Day, or to get your people sharing photos and videos from a special team event.

Nigel Davies is the Founder of Claromentis. He can be reached at 844-238-6868 or nigel.davies@claromentis.com.