The pandemic put credit union executives in their members' shoes. Tim Mislansky, chief strategy officer for the $6.2 billion, Beavercreek, Ohio-based Wright-Patt Credit Union, said when the credit union first closed its branch lobbies and moved to a drive-thru only model, senior executives stood outside to direct traffic and talk with members as they waited in line. That gave them the opportunity to learn more about members' financial struggles and habits. For example, some shared that they won't use mobile deposit because of the automatic hold that's placed on checks, and prefer to make deposits in person with a teller they know who will waive the hold. "It was amazing to see how many truly live paycheck to paycheck. Our senior team members don't live the same financial lives as our members or have the same concerns. We don't have to worry about getting a cashier's check to make a rent payment," he said. "So we learned a lot about accessibility – a lot more than we would have otherwise."

Mislansky also shared that the past year's events caused the credit union to rethink its marketing strategy. It now plans to "hand the megaphone over to its members" instead of keeping the megaphone in the hands of the marketing team, which has traditionally structured messaging around what Wright-Patt can do for members. "We have our eyes open to the true needs of our members more than ever before," he said. "The growing disparity between the haves and the have nots has been exposed more than anything."

The pandemic forced some credit unions to become more comfortable with risks. Wright-Patt has historically been a conservative credit union when it comes to taking risks. According to Mislansky, on a scale of one to 10, with one being the most conservative and 10 being the least, the credit union normally operated at a level one. When March 2020 hit and Wright-Patt had no choice but to make big changes quickly (like take hundreds of employees remote within three weeks – a task the IT team would have laughed at pre-pandemic, Mislansky said), it shot up to level 10. And through it all, Wright-Patt's leaders realized that taking more risks going forward could do them good.

"We don't want to live at level 10 all the time because it was incredibly stressful and exhausting, but we also don't want to go back to a one," he said. "We want to find a middle ground where we can be more agile, and make decisions without feeling like we need 99% or 100% of the information first. We need to move fast enough to remain relevant to our members."

In some respects, credit unions fared much better than they initially feared. Ask anyone what the pandemic has taught them about themselves, and you're likely to hear some version of, "I can handle so much more than I ever thought I could." Alice Stevens, vice president of credit administration for the $3.3 billion, Winston Salem, N.C.-based Truliant Federal Credit Union, said her staff's impressive capabilities were brought to light during the pandemic. "We found that our nervousness about our staff working from home was unfounded," she shared. "We found that our people are very resilient and maybe don't need us as much as we think they do. And my team in credit admin has been more productive in the last year than ever before."

When the pandemic hit, Truliant was preparing to launch a preapproval campaign, and braced for the negative impacts the economic downturn would have on its loan portfolio. "We expected that things might fall off to nothing after our existing pipeline ran its course, and were very happy that it never happened," Stevens said. "Maybe it was unique to us, but we didn't lose our loan demand."

Digital transformation strategies came into clearer view. Like many credit unions, Wright-Patt had the open-ended concept of "digital transformation" on its list of priorities pre-pandemic. It has since refined its vision in terms of what it considers its three key stakeholders – members, employees and the credit union itself – Mislansky explained. The new strategy includes automating mundane tasks for employees so they can focus more on member service and eliminating pain points from members' digital journeys. "If we do all of those things right," he said, "the credit union as a stakeholder should benefit from things like higher job satisfaction and more member referrals."

Whether we like it or not, many of the changes that took shape and behaviors that caught on during our pandemic year are now irreversible. While a strong desire to return to "normal" was widely shared during the initial months of the pandemic, people are now starting to accept that life as we knew it in 2019 is long gone. That's a depressing reality, but as these credit union leaders discovered, we also surprised ourselves by quickly adapting to the unthinkable and realizing that some of our pre-pandemic priorities were in need of adjustment. As we wait for the view of the road ahead to come into sharper focus, consider how the past year's events have changed our perspectives for the better – and be prepared for more shifts along the way.

Natasha Chilingerian

Natasha Chilingerian is executive editor for CU Times. She can be reached at [email protected].