UW Credit Union Gamifies Branch Staff

Thankfully, Madison’s character trait recently come into play – literally and figuratively – in the form of UW Credit Union’s Chris Frey. For the past five years, Frey has worked for the $5.1 billion UW Credit Union and its 328,657 members. In the past year, he became assistant branch manager at the credit union’s Northport Branch.

Tucked on the north side of the city, less than a half mile from the northern edge of Lake Mendota, the Northport Branch sees a lot of the good, and some of the not so good, in its members and the city.

Once Frey began his work at the Northport Branch, he had some concerning observations.

“I noticed that in this, I’ll call it post-COVID world with a lot of people returning to in-person services, two things: It seemed like people were a little high touch and kind of stressed, and that was definitely reflected in and being projected onto my staff,” Frey said. “I had noticed an increase in escalations or just tense scenarios to begin with. And then on the opposite side of that, from the staff’s point of view, I noticed a little trepidation on their side and a little bit of tension kind of coming back into the post-COVID world. There were just a lot of things to get used to, and I think tempers were really high and it was easy for people to get upset or even burned out getting things back to normal, as they say.”

Last March, Frey noticed a lower level of patience coming from members he hadn’t seen since before the pandemic, resulting in some “high tensions” and people who were just “a little angrier” due to any sort of wait in the teller line. These situations began to really wear down the 12 staff members at the branch.

“And I don’t blame them for being worn down by that. And on the same point, I can’t blame the members because it was a whole new world to get used to. When you’re waiting in line a little longer because there isn’t full staffing at a place, or you’re just kind of readjusting to the world after having been cooped up at home, it’s a lot to get used to. So I can see why tempers were high. I kind of attribute it to an extended version of seasonal effective disorder or even cabin fever. It felt like for two years people were kind of cooped up and after that they were lashing out,” Frey observed.

As Frey took in the different behaviors he witnessed from members and staff, he had an idea that he thought just might help alleviate the situation. The idea came from combining two childhood memories: School and the game UNO.

Readers most likely understand the point of the UNO Card Game that has been a family game favorite for decades – it’s to be the first person to get rid of all their cards before anyone else. The game has “action” cards like Draw 2, Reverse and Skip.

Frey’s version is similar and a bit different.

First, he instituted his version of the “Hall Pass” system.

“I was just thinking I need a way to give my folks a break, some kind of a pass away from the [teller] line so that they don’t have to do their prescribed duty and they can just breathe and relax. And it had just popped into my head from when we were in school and being that we’re a university city, getting hall passes when you were younger to go do other things,” Frey said. “The first thing I came up with was for the teller line, given sometimes they’ll set a challenge, or sometimes just if somebody dealt with a really difficult situation that was above and beyond their expectations, I created the Hall Pass system.”

Frey created hall passes that were inspired by the UNO Card Game to hand to tellers who’ve gone through an above-and-beyond situation. The tellers can, at any time, hand Frey the Hall Pass for 15 minutes off the teller line.

Of course, the game has rules.

“I don’t want you doing any work unless you’re dead set on it, but just to walk away and breathe,” Frey said. “I encourage people to go back and watch YouTube videos, listen to music, run across the street and get a snack if they want to.”

He added, “If need be, I cover their space for them. That’s a big thing at the credit union, that we’re supposed to be serving leaders and leading from the front with our people. So that’s an opportunity for me as a manager to show them, ‘Hey, not only will I give you a break, but I’ll do the same work that you are doing as well. You know, I’m never going ask somebody to do something I’m not willing to do myself.”

To prevent exclusion, Frey added another game for the three financial specialists not on the teller line – the legendary UNO reverse card. The idea is similar to the Hall Pass, except if a financial specialist has hit a milestone that’s targeted to the credit union’s overall annual goals, or if they’ve had a tough experience with a member, they are able to pull out the reverse card.

“And what that does is you can throw that down on my desk at the beginning of the day or really at any point in the day, and if there’s an appointment that you don’t want to take, I have to take it,” Frey said. “I encourage people to use it in the most creative ways possible. I say, ‘Come after me, you know, challenge me; make me do something you really don’t want to do.’”

According to Frey, they do challenge him. Sometimes a financial specialist doesn’t have the ability to handle a difficult member. Sometimes they have employee development items they want to work on.

“The number one use is they’re booked up all day and they just want that half an hour to stop and breathe and not have to take the appointment – kind of gather their wits and recharge their batteries,” Frey explained. “And that’s what I’m the most happy to see, because the main goal of this was to give everybody mental health breaks and not experience that burnout that you can get in an eight- or nine-hour shift.”

Frey clarified that the game is tied to individual and credit union goals and metrics. Meeting those goals adds more hall passes and reverse cards to their individual piles to use at nearly any moment of the day.

One day after our interview, UW Credit Union’s Northport Branch location was robbed when a man handed a note demanding cash to one of Frey’s tellers. The suspect got away. Exactly one week later, the same branch was robbed again in the same manner, according to Madison Police. A suspect was arrested.

It’s a challenging and stressful world and Frey’s approach just might be the approach needed to deal with it.