MADISON, Wis.—CUES says it has retooled its membership structure in an effort to help credit unions win in the war for talent.
“We are the talent development leader in our industry and we need to make sure we remain relevant and hold up our end of the bargain,” said CUES President and CEO John Pembroke. “Our membership was telling us, ‘Here are the challenges we are facing in the war for talent and here are the trends that are taking place in learning and professional development.’ By understanding
those challenges and addressing key trends in professional development, we expect to continue to be the leader in talent development in the industry and a great value for our membership. We are helping credit unions win the war for talent by developing, attracting and retaining talented individuals within their four walls.”
As CUToday.info previously reported, CUES has launched a new membership structure it says offers enhanced benefits designed to better serve the needs of its members in educating and developing credit union CEOs, executives, directors and future leaders.
Fresh Start
Pembroke spoke with CUToday.info about the new structure that he said began with a “blank sheet of paper” and a lot of data gathered from CUES members.
“Number one, our members shared a great deal of information with us, gathered through research and through feedback given to our member relations team that is out meeting with credit union leaders on a daily basis,” said Pembroke, who added he gathered insights as well as he spoke with members at CUES events. “They told us we had an opportunity to improve the value we deliver to the membership—value from a standpoint of more benefits that could help them develop as professionals and help their teams, colleagues and board members as well.”
Pembroke said that message was clear and consistent. He said, too, CUES learned members felt that CUES membership could be simplified.
“If you think about our membership structure as it was in the past, we had individual and various group memberships on the management side as well as on the board side. There was an opportunity to simplify things to make things easier for our members to manage and, frankly, for us to manage as well,” said Pembroke, who added that the new structure will also lead to greater operational efficiencies.
Three Tiers
Under the new structure, there are three new CUES membership tiers for both staff and directors: Individual, Unlimited, and Unlimited+. Each membership tier features new and enhanced benefits, and both unlimited levels allow credit unions to add as many employees and board members as they wish for one flat rate, Pembroke said.
Pembroke explained the simplified membership levels include greater access to CUES’ most popular offerings, such as Elite Access Virtual Classroom and online education for board members, providing more content and comprehensive benefits. He said some of the new benefits include individualized curated content and learning pathways, and peer-to-peer networking and sharing through a robust online community.
Pembroke emphasized again that one of the biggest drivers behind the change is offering greater value and simplicity. But a second important factor is addressing the new demographic and market challenges facing credit unions, he said.
“Think about it. We have 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring daily, so a lot of churn in staffing,” noted Pembroke, who also pointed to the impact of Millennials in the workforce who are regularly looking for new opportunities, and that unemployment is at the lowest rate in decades.
Pembroke said that the tight job market has led to talent shortages.
“Which means our members really have to focus on ways to develop and retain the talent they currently have,” said Pembroke. “The membership and educational opportunities we provide are a means of doing that.”
A Fresh Outlook
John Pembroke
Pembroke emphasized that in designing its new membership structure that CUES “pushed everything aside” and started with a fresh outlook.
“We asked ourselves, ‘What does membership need to look like?’” Pembroke told CUToday.info. “We are trying to increase the value we offer and in turn simplify our offerings. And what we came up with was our new structure where we have individual memberships and then credit union memberships. For the credit union membership it is one price and all of the management and all of the directors can join for one price.
“We also added some great new benefits,” continued Pembroke. “A lot more focus is on online learning and networking. We have our CUES Learning Portal—a great information resource that pulls articles, blog posts, white papers, videos and more on educational topics a member is looking for. We are also creating Learning Pathways, based on job roles, that will address even more professional educational needs of our members.”
Building an ‘Online Community’
CUES is also building its Online Community where members can connect with each other to communicate, share ideas and ask questions. Pembroke said that its Elite Access Virtual Classroom will feature online courses from professors from some of the top business schools in the country.
“At the same time we are keeping our benefits that members found a lot of value in, such as our magazine and event discounts,” said Pembroke. “We feel we really improved the value we are offering our members.”
The new CUES membership will be available for enrollment in mid-August and the new features will go live in October.
“The new membership start date doesn’t technically begin until January 1, so the early adopters can get up to 90 days of the new benefits at no extra charge,” said Pembroke.
For more info: cues.org/2019membership