Credit Union Spaces Reflect a World in Flux

Well before the world changed in March 2020, Navy Federal Credit Union had plans in motion to implement increased agility into its branch designs. The nation’s largest credit union, which has $149 billion in assets and approximately 10.7 million members, created a new design concept called SERVE (Scalable, Efficient, Repeatable, Versatile, Enhanced). The identifying features of the SERVE branch would include teller pods instead of windows; modular furnishings that could be quickly moved or reconfigured; closed offices for private member interactions with movable glass walls; a station manned with a greeter who could direct members to the appropriate area of the branch; and less wasted space overall.

When the pandemic hit, the Vienna, Va.-based Navy Federal temporarily shifted its focus to things like serving members via digital channels, providing curbside service at branches and limiting branch capacity. But lucky for those who had invested valuable time and resources into SERVE, Navy Federal determined that the branch redesign project met members’ pandemic-era needs well, and while its rollout would be delayed due to ­COVID-19, it would move forward, explained Jill Gallagher, assistant vice president of branch operations projects and facilities management, and Amber Lauby, manager of branch facility projects.

“Our goal was to reimagine and evolve our current branch features to create components that better served our members and team members. A lot of the features that were built into that actually served us really well during the pandemic,” Lauby said of the SERVE model.

She added, “We were really trying to meet our members’ changing needs. We knew before the pandemic that the future of branching was going to look different, and the pandemic accelerated what was already happening. We wanted to be able to adapt to any future needs without causing any major disruption to the branch.”

With cleanliness and social distancing suddenly top-of-mind, Navy Federal did make a few tweaks to the plan it conceptualized pre-pandemic. For example, each teller pod would be set up to accommodate only one employee to allow for distancing, and easy-to-clean materials such as bleach-cleanable fabric and vinyl tile were chosen for flooring, furniture and wall coverings.

The first SERVE branch opened in White Sands Missile Range, N.M., on Nov. 16, 2020, and three more followed this year in Douglasville, Ga., on Jan. 11, Mesquite, Texas on April 5 and Fayetteville, Ga., on June 28. These locations were chosen because Navy Federal considers them growth markets – places where it hopes to expand its footprint and reel in new members – unlike areas such as Virginia and San Diego, where membership is more established, Lauby said.

Flexibility and putting members’ needs first will remain the overarching themes of future SERVE branches, and by 2022, Navy Federal plans to implement SERVE into all new branch builds and remodels.

“We may open a branch for tellers and find out over time that the members in that area have really adapted to the idea of using mobile banking channels and ATMs for their daily transactions, so then we’d want to use that branch for having one-on-one conversations, financial education or having members learn more about our products and services,” Gallagher said. “We can transition some of the spaces used for teller transactions to a workstation that’s more conductive to sitting down and having a conversation.”

With post-COVID behaviors and needs continuing to shift for both members and employees, credit unions have been ­rethinking how not only their branches are designed and used, but their headquarters as well. Pre-pandemic, all 222 of the $2.3 billion, Dunedin, Fla.-based Achieva Credit Union’s local back-office employees worked onsite, and after successful periods of remote work over the first 14.5 months of the pandemic, the credit union launched a formal remote work program on June 1, 2021, Chief People Officer Jeff Blake explained. Currently, he said, 83% of Achieva’s 246 back-office employees have been approved to work from home, with half of those working fully from home and the other half following a hybrid remote/onsite schedule.

That left the credit union with ample unused space, so it decided to lease a portion of its offices to Hyloq, a local geofencing software company and marketing partner of Achieva’s. Blake said with its security guard, double security-locked doors, and multiple meeting, training and office areas, Achieva’s headquarters was ideal for commercial tenants.

“We looked at it from the perspective of, we’re member-owned and this building was paid for with our members’ money, so let’s make sure we’re using this space in the best possible ways,” Blake added.

Achieva plans to leverage another portion of its unused space for hoteling – an emerging concept that allows remote or hybrid employees to reserve a temporary workstation on the days they plan to be in the office. “We’re thinking on the level of putting in lockers so employees have somewhere to put their items when they arrive and big signs that say, ‘Welcome to the Achieva Hotel,’ so when an employee comes in once a month or so, they feel very welcome,” Blake noted.

The Florida cooperative’s branches are undergoing a transformation too. Offering a full menu of services at the drive-thru window has been a major focus of Achieva’s service strategy during the pandemic, and the drive-thru became so popular that future branch designs have begun to feature smaller lobbies and efficiently-designed drive-thru areas that service multiple cars at once. “For the first time I saw a schematic for a branch at one of our executive meetings where the entire focus wasn’t on the inside of the branch – it was equally split and there was all this thoughtfulness around the drive-thru,” Blake shared.

The evolution of Navy Federal and Acheiva’s branches and office spaces appears to reflect trends popping up at brick-and-mortar credit union locations nationwide. Tom Auer, SVP of design for the architecture, design and project management firm NewGround, said the pandemic led many of the firm’s bank and credit union clients to choose flexible designs, place a greater emphasis on drive-thru windows and further embrace self-service technology at retail locations. The 100-plus-year-old, St. Louis, Mo.-based NewGround has worked with credit unions in all 50 states and Canada with asset sizes ranging from $50 million to over $10 billion. Auer said when the pandemic hit, the firm’s credit union clients had an immediate need to allow for social distancing in their branches and install safety features like plexiglass barriers, and once it became clear that COVID-19 would be around for a while, they began seeking long-term design solutions. He noted that the pandemic’s onset did not lead to the delay or cancellation of any of NewGround’s projects that were under construction or in the design phase.

“A lot of clients were asking us what our other clients were doing to future-proof their branch designs, in case the pandemic were to go on for an extended period of time or we were to get hit with another pandemic,” he said. “They didn’t want to design anything that would prohibit them from reacting quickly, so incorporating a lot of flexibility into the spaces, both from a headquarters and branch standpoint, was the universal theme.”

As Navy Federal discovered when developing its SERVE branch, NewGround’s credit union clients found that it made sense to embrace some of the branch design trends that had been gaining traction pre-pandemic, he said.

“Branches have been reducing the number of transactions they have been processing, so now the environments are really designed around that customer that has a higher need of banking,” he said. “So this [pandemic] helps us focus on that type of consumer and design a space that’s right for them. As an industry, the norm has been that transactions have been decreasing and lobby traffic is down, which from a social distancing standpoint is OK.”

The hub-and-spoke model, where one flagship, full-service branch is complimented by several smaller locations, is also gaining popularity in the industry, Auer said. He also listed several top branch development considerations that are not necessarily COVID-related: Choosing a location that best serves the credit union’s membership, as well as creating an interior environment that communicates the credit union’s brand, what it has to offer members and what it’s passionate about.

Credit unions’ headquarters facilities are not only undergoing changes to accommodate remote employees and allow for protection from germs – they’re getting makeovers to impress job candidates, Auer pointed out.

“Employers are now finding themselves competing for the very best employees, and there are a lot of people moving and changing companies at this particular time,” he said. “So [employers] want to make sure that they design headquarters that are very attractive to retain their existing staff and also attract top-line future employees.”

The aesthetic of credit unions’ branches and headquarters facilities may differ greatly across the nation, but experts agreed that for credit unions to succeed, the design of their structures should all be rooted in adaptability.

“Be open to change, go with it, and figure out what works,” Achieva’s Blake said when asked about the biggest lesson he’s learned over these past 18 months. “Yes, it was a very negative situation that brought us here, but it also brought so many opportunities for companies.”