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With the entire staff of South Bay Credit Union working hard to achieve annual loan growth goals, President/CEO Jennifer Oliver, CCE, told them—almost as a joke, she says now—“If we hit this goal, we’ve got to go to Vegas.”
“It took on a life of its own. Everyone got involved,” Oliver recalls. Employees voluntarily engaged in training for outbound calling and helped increase consumer loan volume in 2013-14 to more than $12 million, four times the pre-2012 annual average of $3 million—and all with a 33 percent decrease in staff that was undertaken to enhance operational efficiency.
Goal achieved, Oliver followed through on the Las Vegas reward. And the staff of the $85 million Redondo Beach, Calif., credit union adhered to their internal mantra of “owning it” to plan the trip with a barebones budget. Fourteen of 17 employees made the trip in July 2014, and the remaining three selected different forms of rewards.
“It was an innovative way of rewarding the team—more about our culture and ownership than about any monetary incentive,” Oliver says. “The event and the opportunity really brought the team together—and they’ve been talking about it ever since.”
The concept of “owning” their accomplishments and rewards has led the staff of South Bay CU, which serves 7,000 members, to come up with some unique incentives. As just one example, they decided that if they achieved their sales goals in March, their CEO would have to dress up as a leprechaun.
Achieving ambitious organizational objectives—and having fun doing so—has increased engagement and camaraderie, Oliver notes. “We’re making our goals and celebrating our accomplishments in some really different ways.”
After topping loan growth goals for a second year, South Bay CU staffers returned to Vegas this spring. “Looks like I’ll have to take a pie in the face and sit in a dunk tank this summer for our next reach goal,” Oliver notes ruefully.
Karen Bankston is a long-time contributor to Credit Union Management and writes about credit unions, membership growth, marketing, operations and technology. She is the proprietor of Precision Prose, Stoughton, Wis.
