The Things We’ll Keep

Last year shook all of us. It was a devastating year in many ways – a year in which we lost too many American lives to COVID-19. I do not mean to diminish the hardships so many suffered. What I want to do instead is to share, from the perspective of an eternal and unapologetic optimist, the good I found in 2020.

There’s a lot I don’t care to relive. But there are things worth holding onto. Here are a few things 2020 taught us that we plan to keep:

• Be intentional. Before last year, if you were two offices down from me, I could stop and say “hi” on the way to the copier. But now, I need to pick up the phone or stop and send a text or email. 2020 forced us to be proactive in our relationships. I plan to keep that up.
• Offer workplace flexibility. I never imagined I’d become a work-from-home proponent. Our culture is so special, and I thought we had to be together – in person – to experience that. But a pandemic taught me otherwise. At the branch level, employees need to be here. Our almost 95,000 members like interacting with us – in person. But there are some roles that can be performed easily from home. Once we get past COVID, we’ll start to figure out which ones can be done from home on a permanent part- or full-time basis.
• Embrace technology. The pandemic forced us, and some of our members, to get more digitally savvy. Some members who had previously been apprehensive about online and mobile banking had to give it a try. Suddenly, they had access to a platform that’s always available. They didn’t need to wait for our Member Experience Center or a branch to open. They can check their balances from their phone. They can go online to see if a check has cleared. Our members love remote deposit capture. We saw an 8% increase in deposits this year, in part because people were snapping pictures of those checks. It’s a convenience for them and less expensive for us to manage that delivery channel.
• Learning can happen anywhere. We saved over $1 million in 2020 simply by not sending people to conferences. Our team members still got to take classes – they just did it from home. We used to be 90% facilitated learning and 10% e-learning. In 2020, we flipped that and went to 90% virtual learning. And, as much as I love networking, I now believe it doesn’t always have to happen in person. There are tons of e-learning opportunities, and some of them take place in group environments. Training will remain a priority, but we can help teammates get the training they need and want at a fraction of what we’ve been spending. That money goes right to the bottom line to allow us to pay higher dividends to our members, pay more on our certificates of deposits or charge less in fees.
• Help employees thrive at work. We opened new career pathways to employees last year out of necessity. Some teams weren’t busy, and some (mortgage lending, for one) saw their workload explode. We shuffled some employees into temporary roles and encouraged them to learn new skills. We want to be proactive in creating that kind of opportunity. And we’re encouraging employees to be proactive in developing their skills. They can now take online courses, whenever they want, to help them prepare for that next role. They don’t have to wait for a class to be offered.
• Make members’ lives easier. COVID forced us to get creative about closings. We began sending notaries to members’ homes for remote closings. That’s a convenience we plan to continue. Using guidance from Fannie Mae, the government underwriter, we were able to offer qualifying mortgage applicants the opportunity to forgo an appraisal. So, members who met certain criteria didn’t have to pay for an appraisal, which saves time and helps the loan close faster. We’ll continue to offer that to qualifying members.
• Collaborate. The pandemic led us to collaborate even more than we used to. Early on, I was on email chains with 20 other credit union CEOs. We’re all learning from each other, sharing what we’ve tried and what works. Were they closing lobbies? What about drive-thru only? How about cleaning protocols? The need for collaboration and information-sharing went up exponentially. I’m now collaborating more, asking more questions and listening better than I’ve listened.
• Don’t get distracted. We could’ve allowed COVID to upend all our plans. But it upended enough. We still bought two branches in Bluffton and Hilton Head, S.C. We still renovated a couple of branches this year. We couldn’t just stop.
• Recognize that Black lives matter. There’s a new (and belated) awareness of systemic racism now, and we can’t go back. We added a theme to our 2020 to 2025 strategic plan around social responsibility, and it includes a big diversity, equity and inclusion component. We will provide more training so we can have tough, necessary conversations in a constructive way. I’m committed to being part of a long-term solution.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as the old cliché goes. I found that to be true. I missed my team. I missed our members. I don’t intend to take any relationship – personal or professional – for granted again. I treasure each of our 300-plus Sharonview employees. I want to know them better, to know about their families, their stories.

Hard times are teachers. I learned a lot from 2020. And I intend to use it to make me a better leader.

Bill Partin is president/CEO for the Indian Land, S.C.-based Sharonview Federal Credit Union.