5 Trends Shaping Workplace Culture

Credit unions are confronting several new market realities in a post-pandemic environment, and how they respond will shape their workplace culture and our industry at large for years to come. Based on the experience of the past two years, I see five key trends already at work shaping future corporate cultures. And, the experience of the recent past also offers clues on how to address these trends – which in many ways are making for a better workplace than prior to 2020.

1. Remote Work

Your credit union likely has experience supporting remote employees. However, no one could have foreseen a need to scale that support to every employee overnight. But that’s exactly what happened when the country began shutting down in March 2020.

Remote work presents many different challenges, but chief among them is maintaining support, camaraderie and a sense of belonging when teams are physically separated. No doubt, the future of work will be hybrid, focusing on the work that needs to be done instead of where it’s done. Here’s how organizations should think about work going forward:

• We always meet customer expectations.
• We want to be flexible.
• We want to manage risk.
• We always ensure we have an inclusive and equitable model of work.

At my company, CO-OP Financial Services, we want to offer flexibility wherever possible, and we know that’s going to be very different from one role to the next. Discoveries there will have to come over time as we test and learn with workplace innovation – ensuring that all four of these objectives are met.

2. Digitalization

The convergence of human and machine expertise comes with a whole set of challenges. Certainly, the focus on technology advancement must remain in harmony with our people-helping-people philosophy.

As technology continues to embed itself in our daily tasks, a growing challenge for credit unions will be how to maintain connections in the workplaces. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will very soon be much more engrained in our work lives than they are today – and we want that, as there are many benefits. But how do we continue to work collaboratively as humans?

Solving a problem together is one of the fastest ways to solidify a bond within a professional team, so that’s where we will need to be cautious and intentional. Credit unions should strategize around concepts like empathy and also around their fundamental purpose and mission. As machines begin to solve our problems autonomously, we need to take additional steps to remain engaged and bonded to one another.

3. Inclusivity

The events of the past year stimulated a rapid acceleration in understanding the value that a smart diversity, equity and inclusion strategy brings to society and business.

Inclusion touches everything. It’s foundational. Unless everyone in the organization can participate to their fullest, that institution will fail to achieve its full potential. Credit unions are increasingly answering the call to go all-in on DE&I efforts. These initiatives align squarely with our movement’s mission and ensure the contributions of all throughout our community are valued and recognized.

One solution is to ensure everyone’s contribution is recognized. Study how you work together so you can find wins that can be celebrated, even operationalized, and find the gaps that can be corrected and prevented when they threaten to pop up again.

A big question to consider is how will we, as a society, sustain our gains? The past 18 months have sparked a lot of discussion and mobilization of change. What will we do to ensure this isn’t just a flash-in-pan trend, but a sustained movement within our industry? This should be a core area of focus as we continue reassembling into new norm.

4. Evolution of the Business Model

The digital age is leading to changes in practically every organization’s business model. According to McKinsey, shortcomings in organizational culture are one of the main impediments to company success in this new setting. One of the biggest lessons we are all learning as we navigate these changes is that values-alignment cannot be ignored, or rather, deprioritized. When hiring and advancing employees, for example, remember – plenty of candidates are wonderful and have the skills you need. But they may not be aligned with your credit union’s values or culture.

In the future, we’ll see a number of employee traits that push candidates to the top. Integrity is a big one, particularly as people move to remote and hybrid environments where accountability can be an issue. Comfort with the unknown is another, as is an acceptance of failure.

Technology is advancing so rapidly today in part because companies are building the car as it’s driving down the road. However, HR 101 tells us employees thrive when they know where things are headed. This fundamental desire to be in the know shouldn’t be ignored. It’s part of human nature and needs to be addressed as we continue to digitally transform.

5. Culture Transformation

Credit unions are no strangers to mergers and acquisitions and the culture challenges that brings with it. It’s not a circumstance unique to the credit union industry. We see consolidation happening in many different verticals, so it’s impacting all kinds of employees across sectors. If you’ve been through one, you know the employee discomfort that comes from not knowing how to act or perform anymore, what gets rewarded or recognized, or how talents and contributions fit in.

The best way to achieve unification organization-wide is to take a bottom-up approach, which requires listening and strategic empathy. Hold focus groups and interviews, working cross sections of the company to come up with key behaviors and cornerstones to adopt. And once you have formulated a credit union culture that reflects the best of many microcultures, put it to the test to ensure that you are moving forward in the best way for all.

One of the most important lessons we learned during the pandemic was how critical a unified culture is during a crisis. When your people are governed by a crystal-clear purpose, vision and values, they are empowered to make things work.

What’s Next

In the future, the challenge for us all will be to continue to grow together. Like everything credit unions do, nurturing a unified company culture takes time, resources and focus. Here are a few questions to consider:

1. Can a hybrid workplace model work for your credit union?

2. As digital takes hold, how will you maintain people-centricity?

3. Do all employees participate, and are individual contributions recognized?

4. How do staff traits need to evolve to take your credit union into the future?

5. What are the microcultures living within your cooperative? Can they be unified?

These questions can be used for introspection or as a framework for strategic discussions around culture. And get others around you thinking about the kind of workplace they aspire to create. After all, culture is everyone’s job. And when we are mindful others and committed to working together, we are stronger for it.

Cheryl Middleton Jones is Chief People Officer for CO-OP Financial Services, a provider of payments and financial technology to credit unions based in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.