1.) You believe in Santa Claus.
2.) You don't believe in Santa Claus.
3.) You play Santa Claus.
4.) You look like Santa Claus!
MERRY CHRISTMAS! 
Merry Christmas Jim and Jean! Thank you for all you do! Noticed our SECU employees are no longer getting 3 holidays for Christmas when Christmas is on Wednesday. Just Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, not the day after.😢 Hate that for our dedicated employees! Bah Humbug. Steve Howell
ReplyDeleteThat actually changed many years ago, maybe eight or more years now. It was said that it better aligned with state employees holiday schedule but that is not accurate as the state still takes the additional day.
DeleteI think that actually started under Jim Hayes. I could be wrong, but I swear that just started 3-4 years ago and they give us a floating holiday instead. I remember HR trying to spin it as being a great thing that was better than before, because you could take the day off anytime you wanted instead of just that one day, but in actuality it meant half of your department/branch is stuck working the day after Christmas despite everyone wanting that day off. Like just about every awful benefit change they push through, gotta try to tell you how good it is that they're screwing you over.
DeleteIt was actually the regulators putting pressure on SECU to conform more with other financial institutions. If you note rarely are other financial institutions closed for more than 1 day. It facilitates the exchange of vital information (transactions, cash, etc) between institutions and between government agencies.
DeleteNot saying I agree with it but that was the pressure to change. SECU finally after many years agreed to give up the third day at Christmas. Beware they are also wanting SECU to give up the day after Thanksgiving.
The "blame it on the regulator" is pure BS. At least for first 85 years or so it was never mentioned... change if you must, but don't manufacture excuses for the changes.
DeleteIndustry Standard don't ya know ...
DeleteThe change was made under Mike Lord, but honestly it was hard for some members when we were closed for three days. Definitely was a great benefit for employees, but being open the day after Christmas was well received by members.
DeleteRight. Depending when Christmas fell the branches could be closed 5 days in a row including weekends at a time when alot of servies required in person signatures. Change was made for the members. I'd argue a good change.
Deletewhat services required in person signatures?
DeleteMore about transaction posting and access. Imagine an ATM deposit taking 5 days. Or us not processing payments timely because of our payment processes. 5 days of ‘activity’ bring a one big night of posting all transactions. I remember one year we went down for a while because of these.
DeleteAgree has nothing to do with 2:16 pm malarkey
DeleteAtm deposits don't post but neither do checks and withdrawals.
Same day loan funding? Mortgage closing? The point being a branch being unavailable for 5 days in a row is not great for members who use their branch. Think we can all agree there.
DeleteThe last year employees got 3 days off for Christmas was 2013. We sure do miss it but, at the rate we're going now, we're thankful to still have those 2 days!
Delete8:55 you are for Saturday hours?
DeleteI'm for anything thats good service for the members as a whole. Identify needs for members and provide a solution. Thats the difference.
DeleteTax prep?
Delete9:48- of course. Great service.
DeleteSame loan rates for every member? Higher savings rates for all? Those are definitely beneficial "for the members as a whole"!!
DeleteGood question @8:38 am. If we do not have Saturday branch hours, should we be offering the same services on Saturday and Sunday. Is waiting until Monday really that much of a problem with the auto power program and credit card program?
Delete@2pm. The original comment was speaking of a time when there wasn't many convenient options. If you wanted same day funding of a loan back then a member needed to visit a branch to sign. Hence closing for 4-5 days in a row for christmas wasn't ideal for members. Having documents mailed, notarized and sent back was the alternative when branches were closed. Not exactly ideal service. The argument for saturday hours isn't quite as stong as it once was. But, by that same argument why not just have the branches open 8am-7pm M-T closed Friday Saturday Sunday? Be carful what you ask for, before too long you have Civic's model.
DeleteMaybe someone can explain this to me. Why would we even consider things like Saturday hours, working the day after Thanksgiving, etc. while at the same time spending millions of dollars on digital solutions that have made it so that almost every single branch function can be done through the CC? Why are we doing both?
Delete@8:55 no, we can't all agree there. Christmas is the same day every year. Plan around the branch being closed. Believe it or not, SECU employees actually do exist outside of their jobs. We have families. Think it's pretty reasonable to have time off for Christmas one time a year.
Delete@7:25. Right, you get christmas eve, christmas day. Not sure the argument? How much time should the organization give you? Take pto or floating holidays if you'd like.
Delete@7:22. Why need a branch at all then?
DeleteSaturday hours are just another way to drain the life out of the working class! Lets us have a life!
DeleteWhy does the ruling class like to gaslight employees into accepting things that don’t benefit us?
DeleteBranch + MSS employees really appreciate the encouragement...when it is sooo easy for ops leaders to take the last 2 weeks of the year off.
DeletePaved paradise and put up a parking lot ...
Delete@7:25 well, uh... how about the day after Christmas? That's what we were talking about in the first place. Two days is not a long break. It's also not as easy as just taking PTO, because that's a time when everyone wants PTO and not everyone can have it. Hence just keeping the branch closed.
Delete@12:25 because there are services better done in a branch. I know I personally would not want to get a mortgage (just as an example) entirely online or over the phone. I'd want to go in and talk to someone. And of course anything involving cash. I'm not arguing that the branch is not important and that members should not generally speaking have access to the branch when they need or want to. I'm simply saying one extra day off at Christmas for employees to be able to spend time with family means a lot to us while presenting at worst a minor inconvenience to members once a year. I think the tradeoff is very reasonable.
Delete@10:34 I can assure you Saturday hours would be the final straw for me. I leave for work at 8:00, I get home at 6:00. I spend 10 hours a day at work and when I get home and have at most 4-5 hours of free time before I need to go to bed to do it all over again. The weekend is already so short. If this company decides to open on Saturdays I will be looking for a new job immediately.
DeleteFrom what it sounds like, SECU employees have it pretty good. Lots of folks work weekends, holidays etc. I'd be thanking the board and exec team for keeping christmas eve and day after thanksgiving as well as giving 8 additional hours of pto as the trade off for ensuring members don't lose access to a branch for 4-5 days in a row during Christmas.
DeleteBanks are open on Friday after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas because they serve businesses. Their most important accounts. SECU has always only served members--no businesses. Maybe taking the day after Christmas, and talking about doing away with the Friday after Thanksgiving and Saturday hours is in preparation for business accounts? just a thought....
Delete@11:56 we shouldn’t be thanking overlords for anything. This should be a standard. Working people across this country deserve to have a life instead of making for shareholders all day and getting peanuts in return. Corporations exploit the working class across the globe daily. Enough is enough. Secu has been one of the few good places to work at until the robber barons creeped in and want to ruin a good place to work.
DeleteIf you work 6-7 days a week, you are basically an indentured servant at that point.
Delete@11:56pm Gaslighting. We should be thankful for our overlords who want to dismantle a great credit union by hiring an outsider and handing him millions of dollars to screw us over. Now we are suppose to believe Leigh brady is here to help workers and the members when she is aligned with Jim Hayes and what he believes.
DeleteBusiness lending will destroy our credit union. It will be focused solely on corporations. Not our members and employees. The day we start business lending, is the day we lose our credit union.
DeleteBusiness lending doesn’t even fit in the Philosophy of a credit union. Credit unions are about serving the people. Not corporations.
DeleteWhy would Leigh tell you she is trying to dismantle the credit union? She’s not stupid. She’s not going to up front about any of this. That’s why she hardly ever sends an email out and when she does, it’s all corporatized BS.
Delete"Business lending doesn’t even fit in the Philosophy of a credit union. Credit unions are about serving the people. Not corporations."
DeleteServing member/owners ...
BTW the 3 days off only happened on certain years not every year ...
11:25. it won't be focused on corporations. there are tens and tens of thousands of current members that are either sole props or own very main street small businesses and employee 4-5 people... but their cooperative makes them do their business banking somewhere else. how would serving their needs destroy the credit union?
Delete@7:21pm local community banks are meant for local business banking. Credit unions are meant to serve basic needs. This isn’t complicated.
Delete@6:26. cooperatives are meant to serve the needs of their member owners. pretty simple.
DeleteIf we can do business banking for a limited amount of the membership? Why not tax services again? Wasn’t that the argument against tax service's that not many members used it and took up time? Wouldn’t that be the same deal with business lending? Limited members would use our businesses loans…so why do it? If we do business lending…then there isn’t any excuse on why we aren’t offering tax services to the working class?
DeleteCan’t do tax prep but we can do business banking? GOT IT
Delete9:01am have that same energy when it comes serving our members with our tax services. *Q the excuses*
DeleteCheckmate
DeleteTax prep is gone because employees complained about it and rather than find a solution the exec team got rid of it. Not that members didn't need it. Had the organization worked together to find a solution rather than just complain it might still be here. Why can't small business services and tax prep both be member needs? And maybe members want more than just basic needs met at the financial institution of their choice.
DeleteExcuse #1^ Can’t wait for the next to float in😎
Delete1:03 That comment was in favor of tax prep. I think that person is on your side?
DeleteTax prep is not analogous to small business lending. Credit Unions and other financial institutions are in the business of lending money. That's what they do. If you need a business loan, you must go to a financial institution in some way. You can't give yourself a business loan.
DeleteTaxes, on the other hand, are not what financial institutions are in the business of doing. We did it as a service to members but it's not what CUs *do*; also, with advances in technology, it's easy to prepare your own taxes. You can't "prepare your own" business loan, by contrast. That's the difference.
Can I actually blame that one on Mike Lord.😜🫣Steve Howell
ReplyDeleteDear Leigh brady,
ReplyDeleteYou live ONCE in life. Do you really want to be remembered as the CEO who dismantled the credit union basically turning it into pseudo credit union aka a BANK. Do you really want to ruin a great place to work? We love our credit union. We want to work here, retire and die. All we ask is for you to provide us good benefits, a good work life balance, and job security. If those things are provided like they always have been before…then you will get 110% out of the SECU workforce. The SECU workforce has a great relationship with our members. Don’t screw that up. Let’s continue to build onto the culture! No need to replicate dry and stale corporate America. Everybody hated Jim Hayes. Why copy him?
I thought we weren’t going after employees anymore?
Delete5:40pm CEOs and executives might as well be a separate entity from the actual employees who do the work and talk with our members.
DeleteThe reason the credit union is great is because of the employees. Not because of technology, c-suit executives, or marketing. It’s all because of our employees especially the front line staff. You can’t automate people service. You know how many members hate calling in and being forced to talk to a robot? Never met a customer/member that loves speaking to an automated human.
ReplyDeleteAnd when I worked at McDonald’s no one ever told me they liked Burger King better either
Delete@5:41pm this is an apples to orange comparison. The original comment was comparing human service vs robotic service. Not comparing micky ds and BK who are different businesses….
DeleteDoes AI have families to feed and bills to pay?
Delete@5:40pm I wouldn’t call Jim Hayes an employee Leigh brady still has a shot to prove herself. Is she pro worker or is she here to line the pockets for her and the c-suits? Is she here to automate jobs or increase staffing? Is she here to help NC communities with local jobs or outsource jobs? Is she here to treat our membership equally or cater to the affluent? Is she here to claw back employee benefits or make this place an attractive place to retire? Are we here to be a non-profit or to be a for-profit credit union? Are we here to buy up and merge with other credit unions?
ReplyDeleteTime will tell where Leigh’s heart is. Is her heart with the membership/employees or is it with MONEY and C-Suit power?
We will see…but most CEOs and boards in America LOVE money and power. I’m curious what path she will choose.
Balls in your court, Ms. Brady.
Thousands of employees are hoping you aren’t like other CEOs who have turned their back on the working class the past few decades.
Do the right thing. I think you can.
I believe she can as well. Time will tell. Hasn’t looked good so far, but change of heart is always on the table especially with SECU veteran that she is. Jim Hayes was doomed for the start. He had no desire to create a great work environment for the working class. He was there to make SECU into Andrew’s federal.
DeleteI think it would be helpful to lay out what Leigh Brady would need to do to gain the support of employees who oppose her. Is there anything she could specifically do other than resign to “do the right thing”?
DeleteI think most employees would prefer her over an outsider…even the ones who dislike her…her resigning would not be wanted at this time..
DeleteHere are a few things that can help Leigh win over employees.
-Continue to promote and hire within the organization. That includes executive positions.
-Hire the necessary staff needed. Branches need to be fully staffed as well as the call centers and internal groups. This has been a struggle ever since Jim Hayes arrived.
-Treat MSS like the respectable department it deserves to be treated as. Put the MSS employees back on their 4on4off schedules. The shift bidding has ruined employee morale in that department. Employees loved that schedule in MSS and those jobs don’t deserve to be treated like a meat grinder. It’s a tough job.
-Reassurance that the executives and board actually care about the employees. It has not felt that way since 2021. I have been here a long time. Many employees felt disrespected when Jim Hayes did his damage. I never felt that during Mike lords and Jim Blaine’s tenure. I always felt secured. Now, as for many other employees, we worry about our future here and what this place will be like. This place has been good to so many people. Not many corporations can say that.
From an employee perspective, those basic things will be a good way for Leigh to win back over employees. Now as for RBL, Business Lending, Tax Prep services, or specialization vs Jack of all trades, or reward credit cards…those issues are more of a nuanced debate that can play out as we go forward. But the things mentioned above can be tackled quickly and that will win her respect back. MSS needs to be treated like a respectable department again. Prior to Jim Hayes and Jared Benish, it was well ran and employees were happy and had much better work schedules. Those employees are just as important as an executive. That’s one thing that can be fixed quickly.
I think it would go a long way for the BOARD if they apologized to the membership for hiring Jim Hayes. Admitting their mistake. That’s a start to repair the wound.
DeleteMSS should be treated as the foundational building block it use to be. It is a good entry level position for employees to learn the ropes. But when it’s turned into a meat grinder like other call centers at other institutions…it becomes a demoralizing job with no path to advance to become a loan officer like it use to be!
Delete@11:56pm seeing the yacht party they had over a year ago with the money gun is something that really rubbed many employees and members the wrong way. While many employees and members were struggling with bills…here’s our exec team riding around on a yacht shooting money out of a gun….that hurt bad as a credit union believer. That wasn’t necessarily on Leigh, but that was a gut punch morally to the organization.
Delete@1:18 100% agreed. The credit union isn’t wolf of Wall Street. It’s the opposite. We don’t serve stockholders. We serve the members.
DeletePeople think we’ll….mss just unlocks passwords and stuff….its more than just unlocking a password. Imagine logging in 1st thing in the morning and the 1st call of the day you get is a member cussing you out for the app being down or something out of our control…these are the types of calls MSS employees deal with daily. Sometimes the task may just be checking a balance, but sometimes employees get cussed by members for no reason when they answer the call…the executives do not deal with this. If someone were to call them at 8am as soon as they got to work and started cussing them out and calling them every name under the sun…I bet they would have a new respect for MSS because this is what they deal with. Love our members, but sometimes they talk to our employees like dogs and this should be taken into account for…it’s more than just unlocking an account or filing a dispute…we are the frontline on the phone usually taking all the heat for things that are not in our control…we want to be treated with respect again and Jared Benish has not done that.
DeleteFlag the recorded call. Management can deal with them.
DeleteThe money gun yacht party included branch leaders (rumor has it an RSVP was there). This goes way deeper than branch vs operations
DeleteBuild of our success, what has worked well.. Not what Jim Hayes did. We have the results in front us. Hayes failed everywhere he went and he was ridiculed by workers at Andrews, SECU and now state dept FCU. Our path showed how an organization can operate for its employees and the membership we serve.. the answers to test are right there!
ReplyDelete