By Ray Birch
PHILADELPHIA—As Halloween approaches, credit union leaders have crawled out from under their bedsheets and left their fear of virtual work behind.
CU bosses and employees have become very adept at managing an eerie new work process, they say, learning the tricks and treats of virtual meetings.
In the first of a two-part CUToday.info report, credit union executives shared with CUToday.info what they have learned during the pandemic about virtual meetings, including how to address “ghostly sounds” and staff who on camera resemble little more than apparitions.
Backed by a COVID-19 Task force, Ardent CU adapted quickly to remote meetings, including learning how to exorcise spectral sounds that can waft in in over digital lines.
“We have tried a variety of video solutions for meetings and have discovered a few seem to work better than others, depending on the purpose of the meeting,” said CEO Rob Werner. “Zoom appears to work best with internal meetings and we prefer GoTo Meetings when we conduct our member seminars.”
According to Ardent, it learned early on some people are scared silly being on screen, and it required some coaxing and managing to get all employees to use video.
“The good news is that because most of us are Zooming with family members, we all learned to use the technology without having a training session,” said Werner.
Move Toward the Light
Another early learning, said Werner, is lighting in the home can keep the “spirits” away.
“Good lighting made it so much easier to see the other person on the other end of the camera,” explained Werner, noting in initial meetings some staff looked like they were wearing a Halloween Darth Vader mask when they sat in front of a window.
Not only were there some pretty scary visions early on, but unsettling sounds, too.
“People learned to silence their phones, so the ever-present ding or warble from another device wasn’t always in the background,” Werner said, adding those creepy sounds have since faded into the mist.
Werner said the monthly sales video calls have been fun, with the CU’s VP of retail normally having some gamification associated with the meeting.
“Either holding up a card to signal your answer to a question or writing something on a piece a paper to share with everyone. This seems to help connect a disconnected team,” said Werner.
What initially really struck fear in the heart of the CEO was worries that what made Ardent Ardent might vanish into the darkness as a result of all the remote work.
“We were concerned with any loss of our very strong culture at Ardent, so marketing launched the app Cluster, which is like a private Instagram account for staff,” he explained. “Weekly topics were announced from marketing and everyone shared pics having to do with the topic. We also hosted virtual happy hours where staff could just gather to share what was going on in their world.”
Werner added that Ardent has discovered smaller groups and shorter video meetings seem to work best.
“We try to not have a meeting go longer than an hour, with agendas required and, if appropriate, time frames for each section of the agenda,” he said. “We recently conducted our annual strategic planning meeting virtually using Zoom. The key to the success of that meeting was having breakout rooms with only five or six people in a room focusing on a specific topic. Run by the various department heads, the directors seemed to really enjoy having the breakout rooms and this past year was considered one of our best planning sessions.”
Haunted Houses
In Washington, D.C., Evan Clark admits when the pandemic first struck he was frightened to death about how employees would perform from home.
“The pandemic hit in March, and like many others we were scrambling to get laptops for everyone and get them high-speed Internet,” said the CEO of Department of Commerce FCU. “It took a week or two, but I was so proud of everyone and the way they worked hard to make telework happen. Now I can happily say that I was totally wrong about telework. For the most part our employees are doing a great job serving members and helping each other out.”
Clark added some of the employees who were “marginal” at the office continued to be marginal at home.
“And we’ve taken actions that we probably should have taken before,” he said. “I like telework so much that we are going to continue it indefinitely, even after the pandemic has passed. And I’m encouraging employees to consider all of their options for telecommuting.”
Don’t Forget the Fun
In the chillingly cold plains of Iowa, GreenState FCU in North Liberty has learned to have some fun with remote working, but not after first moving as fast as a poltergeist in flight to get up to virtual speed.
“Prior to COVID-19, work from home and virtual meetings were not terms regularly discussed and certainly not the norm for GreenState,” said Sarah Farnsworth, human resource manager. “Our ability to quickly and seamlessly adapt our work environment to support a large portion of our workforce to work from home was nothing short of incredible, considering we were not prepared with a policy or technology to necessarily support the rapid deployment.”
One of GreenState’s first big changes was adapting its all-staff meeting, normally held in person for the 300-plus employees, to a virtual environment.
“Our team worked quickly and produced a video that was streamed to our entire organization through our learning management system,” Farnsworth said. “Staff could watch it at a time that was convenient to them. The video has allowed us to still share the necessary updates regarding our organizational objectives while incorporating some fun in the video program as well.”
And fun is important for remote meetings, said Farnsworth, to make sure the events don’t go dead.
“We’ve had some successes with transitioning our beloved Beer Cart Friday to a virtual format,” she said. “Our HR department coordinated the Zoom sessions for those teams that wanted to participate and asked them to BYOB, and reserved an hour or two at the end of the week to catch up and have a beverage with their teammates virtually.”
Happy Hour
Georgetown University Alumni & Student FCU in Washington is having some fun, too, as the pandemic casts a cloud of darkness across the nation’s capital.
“In an attempt to reestablish the lost interpersonal connection of working together in the branch, we have incorporated a number of fun virtual work activities into our Zoom meetings,” explained CEO Sam Lazarus. “The C-suite hosts a biweekly happy hour open to all employees, frequent trivia games, and of course there are plenty of emojis and tomfoolery in meeting chat rooms.”
And instead of hosting the credit union’s usual all-company in-person social events, the HR department now organizes frequent small group dinners and outings with less than six employees per group.
“Every month or so these groups are randomized so all of our interns can build relationships with a wide set of coworkers across many departments and ranks,” said Lazarus. “Common outings include dinner in Georgetown, picnics, and even some ‘book club-esque’ activities for our English major interns. Some interns prefer to remain socially distanced and indoors, so many of these small group activities take place over Zoom.”
No Magic Spell
Yet, in the end, the CEO acknowledged there is no magic spell to replace the benefits of in-person work.
“As soon as public health conditions and regulations allow us to safely return to pre-COVID norms, we plan to do so,” he said. “Of course, virtual meetings may become more common and some tasks will be automated permanently. But, we're all waiting for the day we can step back into the branch and help our members face to face. Until that day comes, we will keep calm and carry on with lots of funny Zoom backgrounds, happy hours, glitchy video feeds—and tedious dial-ins. When life gives you lemons…”