Print
Just as we are excited about engaging with our fellow Synergent staff members, we are also excited to work with organizations that truly excel at creating an active and engaging environment for their employees – credit unions! A great example of this can be seen at one of our credit union partners, Town & Country FCU who was recently awarded a CUNA Excellence in HR/TD Award for 2013 in the employee engagement category. We congratulate them for their extraordinary efforts in creating an exceptional workplace!
Here, Nicole Sears, VP & Chief People Officer for the credit union, shares some of the ways they cultivate this positive work environment:
Our goal as an organization is to always be focused on our employees and making sure that we always consider what our employees need when planning initiatives. We involve them in planning; we ask for their feedback and implement some of their ideas. We celebrate their life changes like marriage or new babies, and we support them when they go through tough times. Engagement isn’t as simple as implementing one program, it’s complicated and multi faceted but more than anything it’s a mindset and a culture. At the end of the day, our employees are the ones who make Town & Country successful and it’s our job to make sure they are happy and valued. Being happy at work is deeper than the work you do, it’s knowing you have a future and the training to support your goals, it’s knowing that your family matters to us and it’s making friends that go beyond the walls of the office. The programs and events we do are done collectively to make employees happy and committed. If we have fun and enjoy our work, then our members get exceptional service every time. We spend a lot of time at work why not have fun while doing it!
Some of the programs we’ve rolled out to support employee engagement:
- Advisor Program – A group of colleagues brought together to help new employees assimilate into our organization
- Employee Experience Team – a group of employees to plan events outside of work as well as fun contest, parties and events during work hours
- Recognition Program – multi faceted program that involves peer-to-peer recognition, newsletter celebrations and weekly/monthly contests
- Celebrations – frequent celebrations of marriage, babies, new house purchases etc.
- Career Planning – focused on determining what employees want to be when they grow up and how can we get them there!
- Project Teams – Employees can work on projects outside of their department
- Job Shadow/Cross Training – Every employee can job shadow and cross train in a different department
Every year we look to add to what we already have or to develop something new, the only prerequisite is that is focused on employees and is fun!
