By Ray Birch
MADISON, Wis.—Credit unions have been offered some strategies for reducing employee turnover, specifically how to reduce employee burnout and feelings of loneliness—while also potentially helping members who may be in distress, as well.
The advice—which comes as credit unions face strains in recruiting and retaining talent and everyday members feel more financial pressures—was shared during a webinar hosted by the Filene Research Institute.
Tackling burnout and feelings of loneliness is critical not just for reducing turnover and all the related costs, but also because both challenges lead to higher rates of mental and then physical health issues for employees and members alike, according to Filene Community Development Director Cortney Angeley.
Angeley offered her insights during a Filene webinar titled “Leading with Heart, Earning Results.”
Many Not in a Good Place
“What we do know is that about 24% of Americans say that their mental health is fair or poor,” said Angeley, citing Cigna data. “These are people that either are folks that we're serving in our credit unions, or they can also potentially be our team members working in our credit unions, as well. Not only that, the percentage of Americans reporting good mental health is down from 5% in 2018. And these are pre-pandemic numbers.”
Those numbers have only gotten worse during the health crisis, Angeley stressed.
“At this point, about 20% of Americans will experience a mental illness in a given year, whether that's a panic attack, whether that's an obsessive compulsive disorder, whether that's some other type of breakdown... These are folks who are really going to go through some tumultuous times as it comes to their mental health over the next year,” she said.
A Look at the Causes
But how does this translate into the workplace?
“What do we really know about folks being lonely or feeling burned out? And what are some of the causes? Well, we certainly know there can be a lack of social support, whether it's in the workplace, or whether it's at home, we're all going through a time where there's a lot of unknowns, even now when we know more than we did two years ago,” Angeley explained. “And because of those less frequent social interactions, it can absolutely lead to negative feelings about not only your work relationships, but oftentimes, personal relationships.”
Angeley said following the pandemic’s move to remote work, it is getting harder for employees to separate their personal lives from their professional lives.
“This can lead to not only poor physical health, but also poor mental health,” she said. “And these two are definitely related to each other,” Angeley said.
The Lack of Balance
A key issue is that many people are not finding balance in their lives.
“Oftentimes, we find folks are either doing way too much. So, their plates are absolutely overloaded. Or we're finding that people aren't doing enough. And it's this idea of doing one or the other where there is no balance that's really causing this state of disruption in mental health in our workforce,” Angeley explained.
The data all points to many workers feeling burned out and lonely, said Angeley.
“We have research at Filene that corroborates a lot of this,” she explained.
In April, Filene put out a report called the "New Hybrid Credit Union Workplace."
“Some of the statistics that came out of that report were absolutely jarring,” she said.
A Critical Statistic
One very important statistic Angeley pointed to is that 40% of the global workforce is considering leaving their employer this year.
“This is a global statistic. This does not just relate to the credit union industry. However, this is still very telling,” Angeley said. “We are hearing that folks are concerned with turnover and retention within their organizations. And that's coupled with the fact that 37% of the global workforce thinks that right now, companies are asking too much of them. So, not only does the data tell us that the workforce is burned out and they're stressed, but also our team members and our employees are telling us that we are asking too much of them now.”
The current environment is leading to more missed days at work, data show.
“Lonely workers report being twice as likely to miss a day of work due to mental illness compared to their counterparts who are feeling less stress,” Angeley said. “In fact, they're five times as likely to miss a day of work due to stress.”
Another key data point related to the lower quality of work.
“While only 4% of non-lonely workers report that the quality of their work is lower than it should be; 12% of lonely workers believe their quality of work is lower than what it should be,” Angeley said. “At this point, when folks are that lonely, they already know that the work they're producing isn't as good as it should be.”
Lower Productivity
All of that, according to Angeley, leads to lower productivity.
“While the majority of non-lonely workers, roughly 54%, claim higher productivity than their peers, most or all of the time, only 45% of lonely workers make that claim,” she said. “Again, they're not feeling productive, they feel like the quality of their work is not as good. And all of these things can lead to that poor mental and poor physical condition—not feeling like they're doing what they should be doing. And then the ultimate cost of this is the higher risk of turnover.”
Data show that in an average month lonely workers think about quitting their job more than twice as often as non-lonely workers.
What Credit Unions Can Do as Employers
What can employers do? Angeley emphasized the importance of communicating regularly withy staff to make better connections with them.
“This isn't just a silver bullet answer; it takes tweaking, it takes iteration,” she said. “It takes experimentation to really understand what's going to work for your team, because every team is very different. But we do know that increasing the frequency of phone calls or in-person conversations at work can reduce loneliness.”
The communications must match the need of employees’ expectations.
“So, does it matter to the individual person if they prefer a quick ping through Teams, or a phone call, maybe a walk outside, whatever it might be? What matters is that you connect. But it also matters how you connect with that particular, unique, individual,” Angeley explained.
Can’t Fake It
Angeley added that data show leaders must be “authentic,” with their employees.
“When we think about authentic leadership, oftentimes, we feel like this means full self-disclosure, that we have to be fully honest about all of the fears and challenges and things that scare us, when actually that's not the case,” she said. “Authentic leadership has nothing to do with full self-disclosure, but everything to do with genuine vulnerability. Yes, as a leader we need people to respect us. We need people to do what we have asked of them from time to time. But at the end of the day, people need to know that you understand where they are coming from, and that you see them as an individual. And that may feel mushy, but that is just the way our team members are moving.”