LAS VEGAS–Internal “universities” at credit unions aren’t just about the teaching anymore; they have had do to a lot of learning, as well.
Specifically, they have had to retool their programs to consider how people now learn, to incorporate video, and even the principles of gamification.
And some credit unions are even partnering with businesses in their communities to sell the training/education they do, as those businesses’ employees often require much of the same training.
Sharing their experiences and thoughts on what’s ahead with employee education and internal universities with attendees at the CUNA HR and Organizational Development meeting here were Juliann Chapman, dean of BrightSolutions University at TwinStar CU in Lacey, Wash., and Suzanne Oliver, SVP talent and member development with Mountain America CU in West Jordan, Utah.
Both Chapman and Oliver stressed that the old, fixed lecture, learn, test model is outmoded—at least for credit unions that want to recruit and retain new employees.
“People want to have control of their learning, and many have initiative--they want to learn,” said Oliver. “It’s been a huge recruiting tool.”
Mountain America University was created in 2000 following the formation of an advisory council made up of 12 organizational leaders. Its mission is to “empower people to learn, change and grow,” while is vision is “Discover our future.” She emphasized that senior management must have a commitment to a “learning culture” for any credit union to have success.
Oliver said she has been able to demonstrate the ROI delivered by Mountain America University, which has allowed for more funding. The $6.5 billion MACU is based in Utah and has 85 branches and 1,900 employees spread across five states.
MACU Offerings
MACU offers “degrees” at the associates, bachelors (bronze, silver, gold and platinum levels), and graduate degrees, including masters and Ph.D. levels (although it is very clear these degrees are not the equivalent of college degrees).
In 2016, however, Oliver said Mountain America recognized what was taking place in the world and took away its own lesson. As a result, it “reimagined” its university and tied in far more social learning aspects.
“One of our values is continuous improvement, and we all need that for survival, but we wanted to give more control of the learning to the learner,” said Oliver. That meant some new systems and new educational courses, including personal finance, writing skills, history, even courses in art on the personal development side. It continues to offer courses to help meet goals and professional development, too.
To do that, it partnered with Degreed, a company that offers what it calls a “life-long learning platform.”
“It’s been very refreshing to us,” said Oliver. “It’s very much designed to be social. The employee picks five topics of interest, and every day is notified of five articles to be read related to those topics.”
Employees can offer comment, and earn points for their reading, as well as points for watching videos, attending classes, and more.
“Our employees have really loved that, and we reward them based on their points,” said Chapman, adding the online courses remain available and are also tracked. “People are really highly engaged, and leaders love it because they don’t have to go out and search for information for their people.”
Mountain America has also put in place a Career Advance Program that gives employees the opportunity to look at other careers within the organization. In MACU, talent development is separate from HR.
“We want to grow people, even if into other areas in the company. We much prefer that to having them leave,” Oliver said.
When an audience member from a 93-employee CU that doesn’t always have open positions available asked about employees’ expectations of what’s at the end of their learning, Oliver responded, “We are very clear it’s not a promise. If you can build them to be their best person, it’s still worth it, even if they get two or three years with you. They will always be an advocate for your organization.”
Paid To Participate
Sharing her credit union’s experience, Chapman, who leads the BrightSolutions University program at the $1-billion TwinStar Credit Union, which has 400 employees, said more than half of its workers have enrolled to date. It pays employees to participate in classes that are required, but other classes and courses are done on an employee’s own time. The CU works with managers to adjust employee work schedules so they can participate during their normal work hours.
“We find people who come into the credit union are so jazzed about the university and that we give them all of this education for free,” said Chapman. “We have partnered with several different universities, and many of the courses they can take offer college credit. We found a lot of people didn’t really know where they wanted to go, and many just wanted to figure out what is this organization all about.”
Chapman said BrightSolutions is in the process of eliminating its graduate-level program, which she said has never worked the way it was intended.
BrightSolutions offers a “blended” curriculum, she said, including classroom and experiential events—which she called “huge.” Employees also spend time in the departments in which they think they may wish to work.
Chapman noted that numerous “gurus” are saying the corporate university is “dead,” and she said she agrees. But that’s also a reference to the traditional type of university, not the need for training and learning, which has become more important than ever.
“We are a learning culture and people want it, even if you can only do a little bit of it,” said Chapman. “My crystal ball is telling us that we need to move at the speed of light to make some changes in the traditional ways we are learning. We have to be strategic and align with our organizations. I don’t always have a seat at the table, so I have to go find the table and find out what’s coming down the pike.”
Oliver agreed. “Aligning to the business goals is the way to get support. Everything you do has to roll up to those. And, often, I think we miss the boat because we think ‘I can’t directly impact that.’ It’s a cop-out. We have to think bigger.”
Chapman said her own personal learning has involved realizing the need for being extremely flexible, especially with the way employees absorb and digest information.
“I have in recent years learned more about our learners and how we take in content differently, and we have had to get outside of that box and listen to employees,” she said. “Although we have structures in our universities, we break that box all the time. We create hybrids for people so they can learn.”
She recommended that credit union HR and organizational development execs pay attention to trade publications and other reports in which the kind of work that is being done inside companies such as Google, Ritz-Carlton, Zappos and Disney is often profiled, and then learn from them.
“They are leveraging the knowledge economy. That’s where this is going,” she said.
Chapman noted, too, that many small businesses are seeing the kind of training going on inside credit unions, which means opportunities to expand the programs to include those businesses’ employees.
“The carrot and stick is going away,” said Chapman. “We want to allow people to have autonomy in their learning. They need to fail and keep getting better, and fail and keep getting better,” which is also known as gamification.