By Ray Birch
SAN ANTONIO—At a time when many companies are simply trying to retain their workforce, SWBC is expanding its operations, due in part to changing CU needs during the pandemic.
SWBC, considered an essential business by this state’s government, has hired 50 new employees as it works to keep customer service levels high, and it will soon hire 50 more.
“What we are most satisfied with is we have not furloughed anybody,” said Mark Hein, CEO of SWBC’s Financial Institution Group. “We're taking a more holistic approach throughout this pandemic. We’re saying we are going to keep our employees healthy both financially and physically, and—knock on wood—we’ve been able to expand.”
What’s driving some of the expansion, noted Hein, is credit unions’ evolving needs as the coronavirus pandemic continues.
“Credit unions are issuing a large number of mortgage forbearances and need more help in the mortgage lending area,” explained Hein. “Credit unions are having to field a huge number of phone calls and answer so many questions from members who need answers quickly. That can be hard to do with their existing teams.”
A Twist on Collections
Hein said some of the 50 additional staff it is now looking add will head to collections.
“Not really to help collect on loans, but our clients are saying we're not interested now in trying to get money out of our members, they’re more interested in talking to borrowers to try to find out what their unique issues are so they can notate that and then get back to the member when things get better across the country,” explained Hein.
Other divisions seeing more support: call center, mortgage, financial institutions, information technology, investments, and insurance services.
The company has been able to service clients, largely credit unions, with 95% of its team working from home.
“Fortunately, we were well set up to go to a remote team,” said Hein. “We saw what was developing with COVID-19 across the nation and around the world and we moved well before the Trump Administration mandated working remotely. We said, ‘This is going to be bad.’ So we took the opportunity to start putting into action our business continuity and disaster recovery plans and had our team working from home early. That’s why our numbers—service levels and overall business—look so good right now; we were ready and did not wait until the last minute. We got comfortable with the new working environment and made adjustments before we really had to.”
Moving to Cloud Pays Off
With 2,550 employees across all SWBC divisions, getting 95% of that workforce to work from home can be challenging, acknowledged Greg Hermanson, SVP of human resources.
“However, this wasn’t as difficult as we expected. Much of that is due to the company four years ago making a lot of good technology decisions—enhancing our tech and moving things to the cloud. For example, our phone system is in the cloud and that really made this transition a lot easier,” said Hermanson. “The cool thing about having our phone system in the cloud is it allows our automated dialers to work with our team at home. Thanks to moving solutions to the cloud, our team today is able to easily do at home what they were doing in the office.”
Mark Hein
A concern of companies with a remote workforce is keeping productivity high—not only due to technical concerns but also to distractions at home. Hermanson explained that SWBC’s productivity has remained high, adding one of the reasons is fewer meetings.
“We’re finding out you can get a lot done when people are participating in fewer meetings,” said Hermanson. “And we are not micromanaging them, just expecting them to do what they are supposed to do and our employees are doing that well at home.”
Planning Pays Off
Hermanson emphasized why every organization should put a premium on planning.
“For two years we have been running our business continuity plan, testing it every month, having major tabletop exercises…,” said Hermanson. “When the pandemic happened we literally just turned on our plan for our largest division, which is Mark’s division, and we were way ahead of anybody else in the city as far as sending people home to work. The prep work that went into this made all the difference.”
Hermanson added that while most current openings are in the San Antonio area, SWBC continues to have needs across the country, as well.
“Serving a number of industries in the financial services sector, we continue to see a demand from our customers – both financial institutions and consumers,” he said.