Employee burnout can occur for a few reasons, both personal and professional. Still, credit union leaders are challenged to best address and relieve employee stress and frustration. Simply having employees take time off might alleviate a symptom, but time away doesn’t necessarily address the root cause nor provide a long-term solution.
Look inward. Taking a closer look at how your team works – or works around – can provide clues your credit union leadership can begin addressing today.
How Bad Is Employee Burnout?
While many employees are happy and even passionate about their jobs, that hasn’t stopped burnout from setting in. According to an article in Credit Union Times, 84% of 1,100 full-time employees surveyed said they are satisfied with their jobs. At the same time, 65% said they still feel burned out. Additionally, 72% of employees said feeling burned out has affected their on-the-job performance and productivity.
Clearly, burnout is a significant problem that leads the best employees to begin a job search. Employee churn itself is one of the biggest credit union inefficiencies and expenses for credit unions. As an employer, controlling what you can to reduce employee burnout is crucial.
How Inefficiencies Are Leading to Burnout
With lightning-fast technological advancements, credit unions have been under pressure to update their systems quickly to better meet members’ demands. But what about the employees’ experience? According to an article from America’s Credit Unions, the top drivers of employee burnout in 2023 were ineffective processes, systems and organizations taking far too long to make decisions and to resolve inefficiencies.
Across all industries in the US, turnover was 3.5% in 2023. However, for banks and credit unions in 2022, it reached above 20%! According to Forbes, it costs 33% of a person’s salary to replace them, and a Balanced Comp survey found full-time tellers being compensated at $32,000 per year. If you have 100 employees, your credit union is spending $10,000 every time a staff member leaves, or $100,000 in one year if half those employees are tellers – and that’s only accounting for the usually lowest paying, highest turnover position at a credit union.
How to Build Operational Excellence
As the America’s Credit Unions survey illustrates, building operational excellence in your credit union can help stem the tide for those leaving out of frustration with the inefficiencies impeding their performance and affecting the member experience. They want to do a good job but can’t affect change, so they burn out.
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Automate the Mind-Numbing
Automate where possible to handle the repetitive, time-consuming tasks, such as maintaining documents and data and certain types of member service communications. Leveraging automation to handle tasks employees often consider mind-numbing allows your team to focus on the more human work, like engaging more deeply with members. Automation unburdens your team and will enable them to focus on the most critical work that is meaningful to the members and the credit union.
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Ensure the Appropriate Level of Training
Provide opportunities for employees to not only do the tasks of their job but also to learn to understand the bigger picture. Offer management and leadership training to those who are interested and ready for the opportunity. Invest in them, and they’ll 1) think more strategically and work more efficiently and 2) constantly be challenged and motivated. Employees will feel valued when you see capabilities in them and when you invest in their future.
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Communicate With Your People
While developing efficient processes and effective systems is essential, credit union leaders must continuously communicate with their employees at all levels. And don’t forget, it’s a two-way street of sharing and listening. Your frontline staff are your primary source of feedback to let you know what is working and what is not—for them and your members. Disregarding regular communication with the entire team, one-on-ones with individuals and skip-level sessions creates frustrations and deprives leadership of the information they need to affect change. Effective communication promotes information sharing, addresses issues quickly and fosters teamwork.
In conclusion, burnout can be challenging to address and is often connected with a stressful job. It looks different for everyone and sometimes isn’t directly related to their assigned tasks. However, leaders can be aware of the signs and the possible workplace causes to address what they can control to stem the tide of employee turnover. Look for ways to improve your credit union’s inefficiencies in people, processes, and systems. Offer training for your employees so they understand your credit union is more than a paycheck to them. Finally, encourage open and honest feedback in both directions to help your team better serve your members. After all, they are why we exist.
Need help? Reach out to O2 today, and we can provide a guiding hand to achieve operational excellence in support of your credit union’s mission! Email getresults@O2ConsultingGroup.com
