Leaders, It’s Time to Lead

We’re weary. Now 18 months into our pandemic plans, we’re still tediously tracking FFCRA leave, monitoring exposures, and implementing widely-varying regional public health mandates. I’ve had many colleagues refer to this year as “Groundhog Day.” At Maps Credit Union, we planned all year for a return to in-person work on Sept. 7 – the day after Labor Day. It seemed so far away, yet so fitting for the end of summer, that it felt like an exciting countdown to normalcy – kind of like “back to school” for adults.  Once again, we’d be enjoying shoulder-to-shoulder all-staff meetings, seeing one another in the boardroom, walking downtown for lunch, and leaning into each other’s doorways with stories and ideas to share.

Then came Delta. The variant has ravaged Oregon, and our health care providers and facilities are near a tipping point. Our very own local hospital has a refrigerated truck on standby. We’re still mostly remote and, once again, riding out the tragic tidal wave of infection and death in our beloved community while watching the statistics move in the wrong direction.

Whether you’re in Oregon or not, one message from health experts has remained notably consistent:  Vaccinations are effective and urgently necessary. The vast majority of hospitalized patients are unvaccinated. While vaccination won’t prevent every case of COVID-19, it is built to prevent serious illness and death. And it works. Time and time again, we see and hear from doctors and nurses who are begging the public to get this done. (I urge you to read and share this eye-opening LA Times piece from a COVID unit doctor.) Yes, while this crisis has been called “a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” its impacts ripple out to everyone. Packed ICUs mean no beds for patients stricken with heart attacks, strokes, car accident injuries or sepsis. Strained hospital staffing and resources mean elective surgeries are postponed. The term “elective” isn’t what most people think, either. “Elective” simply means “scheduled in advance,” and that means there are human beings in your own communities right now who have learned that cancerous tumors are growing inside of their bodies, and they are being forced to wait for lifesaving surgery due to the influx of COVID-19 patients in hospitals. Let’s also not forget children. Too young to be vaccinated, kids 12 and under are now more susceptible to severe illness than ever and sharply-rising pediatric hospitalizations reflect this.

Credit union leaders, do you not feel thunderous dissonance at this moment in history? As cooperatives, we proudly share our dedication to the communities in which we operate, and we often tout our impact on Main Street. It’s what we’re all about – thriving communities. It’s what supposedly differentiates us from the for-profit guys. Yet those very communities are buckling under the weight of an entirely preventable crisis! We promote financial well-being and education, yet we’re not doing our part to end a pandemic that has shuttered too many small businesses to count. We promote thrift and conservative money management, yet our own employees face the potential of mountainous, completely-avoidable hospital bills and unpaid obligations as wave after wave of the virus looms. We shake our heads at the sad COVID-19 statistics in our neighborhoods, yet we proceed with conventions requiring travel to states where exhausted and heroic medical personnel are publicly pleading with people to stay home! We’ve started a long-overdue journey towards DEI in our industry, yet we’re turning a blind eye to the fact that Black and Brown people have been devastatingly and disproportionately impacted by this deadly virus. We march on our states’ capitols each year with talking points in hand and scarves of solidarity around our necks, yet we turn away from the inconvenient truth that it will take a lot more than talking points to climb out of this hole. This is going to take action, and this is going to take all of us. If we want to be leaders in our communities, then we need to act like leaders. Over 650,000 deaths in the United States alone is apparently not enough to grab everyone’s attention. It’s baffling, yet true. Leaders, this isn’t the time to tiptoe. It’s time to lead. 

Let’s stop fearing a “political debate” and make this what it’s really about: Science. It will take people like you and me to change that narrative.

Let’s do less dancing around a “delicate issue” and more loud and frequent promotion of the truth: Vaccines save lives – and diligent masking and distancing reduces spread. 

Let’s stop gathering for frivolous conferences and actually practice what we preach about supporting communities – heeding the desperate calls of health care leaders we rub elbows with at rotary and whom we proudly call our members. (Instead of paying for cocktails at trade shows, maybe our associations can donate those funds to providing housing for traveling nurses or meals to discouraged ICU staff.)

Let’s have fewer hushed leadership conversations and start being outspoken advocates for doing what is right for our nation and for our communities: Vaccination, masking and social distancing. 

Let’s actually put employee wellness front and center in our organizations. Employees shuttered at home waiting for the pandemic to end aren’t well. Employees in quarantine due to COVID-19 exposures aren’t well. Employees with sick infants from daycare exposures aren’t well. Employees whose elderly parents live with them aren’t well. Employees whose fifth graders are sent home from school after classroom exposures aren’t well. Employees trying to balance screaming toddlers and barking dogs with Zoom calls aren’t well. Employees with teens fighting depression aren’t well. Employees awaiting test results aren’t well. Employees battling underlying health conditions aren’t well. Employees need this crisis to end, and the end will come when we finally heed the advice of experts and stop putting our heads in the sand. This is not hopeless! The welfare of our communities is not out of our lane. It’s time to fight, and that fight starts with gutting up and making the tough decisions, one business at a time.  That includes us.

Last month at Maps, we initiated a “Delta double” bonus of $200 for any employee who turns in a completed vaccination card, and we made it retroactive for the early birds who had already taken advantage of our original $100 vaccine bonus. We celebrate each and every employee who makes that decision, because it’s one step closer to the end of this ordeal, and it’s one less employee and community member we have to worry about ending up in the ICU or worse. Recently, we also asked vaccinated employees to share their “why” stories with us. Compelling stories are in the DNA of credit unions, right? The feedback we’ve received has been powerful, and we’ve watched with pride and gratitude as completed vaccination cards have been scanned in one by one.

Employees’ stories of loss and hope and frustration and sadness and fear are authentic, poignant, raw and brutally honest. They reveal just how close to home the heartache of this crisis has been. One employee described all the amazing accomplishments and adventures his grandmother had before she lost her life to COVID-19 in December. I shared my own story – being on immunotherapy for multiple sclerosis (MS) and how I’m relying on others to be vaccinated and protect people like me. Another employee described herself as a “conspiracy theorist” until her young daughter was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She shared her beautiful daughter’s photo as her “why” for getting vaccinated. Can you imagine? These stories have been profoundly moving, and we as leaders feel so honored that our employees are willing to share them with their friends and coworkers. If only one person is persuaded to get vaccinated after reading the insights of peers, the effort of telling these stories is worth it.

So why am I sharing this? Because we all have ideas, and this is a great time to show that collaborative muscle we so often brag about. COVID-19 is bigger than any one industry or one region. But we win the war by fighting one battle at a time on each of our own small “fronts.”

The decision we made at Maps to tackle a tough topic head-on was worth it. In the words of Dr. Anita Sircar at the UCLA School of Medicine, “… perhaps never in history has anyone’s personal choice affected the world as a whole as it does right now.”

Leaders, again, it’s time to lead. Tell the truth. Promote vaccination. Distance. Mask up. Help our healthcare workers. Sacrifice. Do what’s right. Do what we do best: Serve our communities. Shine by example. Share stories. We can do this, and we must.

Rachel Pross is COO for the $1.2 billion Maps Credit Union based in Salem, Ore.