A new program from First Financial of Maryland Federal Credit Union ($1.3B, Sparks, MD) aims to bridge the gap between subject matter expertise and credit union leadership by marrying front-line member experience knowledge with leadership training in a way that prevents silos.
“Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in your workflow and forget you have a number of peers across the board who are fighting the same challenges as you,” says Arturo Leon, assistant vice president and member experience officer at First Financial of Maryland.
For example, Leon points to card fraud. A member experience specialist working with a concerned member might not understand why the credit union took certain steps, while back-office card specialists are equally passionate about fraud prevention yet never get the chance to interact with members and front-line staff.
To rise above day-to-day challenges, focus on the bigger picture, and develop a singular mindset around member experience, the credit union has created a 16-person cohort of member experience leaders who work directly with members or whose work directly impacts members. That includes branch managers, contact center supervisors, digital products managers, First Financial’s cards administrator, and some back-office leaders.
The group will meet monthly for six different workshops — each with a different theme and corresponding assignments. By the time the sessions end in August, participants must have identified a “spark of inspiration,” something within their control that they can improve upon or have a direct impact on. The cohort will then reconvene in December to share the results of their sparks.
“The goal is that as we have new leaders come in, we’ll have an annual cohort that they’ll be a part of,” Leon says. “Anybody hired in the previous year will be put in a future cohort moving forward.”
‘Cultural Unification’
Leon is quick to point out that the credit union established the cohort concept not to solve problems but to create a culture of continued improvement. One of his goals for 2025, he says, is to ensure staff understand how they are impacted by large strategic planning goals.
CU QUICK FACTS
FIRST FINANCIAL OF MARYLAND FCU
HQ: Sparks, MD
ASSETS: $1.3B
MEMBERS: 71,814
BRANCHES: 8
EMPLOYEES: 175
NET WORTH: 18.4%
ROA: 0.16%
“A good employee experience is a good member experience,” the credit union officer says. “So how do I create spaces for our employees to have the discussions they need to have so they are inspired to create good experiences for their staff and members?”
If the program is successful, Leon says, each of the 16 participants will gain a deeper appreciation of the work their colleagues do and a better understanding how each can leverage the others’ expertise for success.
“We’re looking for something that’s hard to measure — a cultural unification of this group after the cohort is over,” Leon says.
Leon built the curriculum based on his own assessment of needs as well as conversations with senior leaders about the discussions they wished they’d had in their careers. The result? Workshops that focus on topics like understanding your role, how that role intersects with others, the pursuit of excellence, reframing conflict and opportunity, and more.
The credit union has hosted two workshops so far, and Leon says the response has been “overwhelmingly positive.” To create minimal disruption on participants’ work, only the first and last of the 90-minute workshops are in-person; participants can attend the rest virtually. Leon hosts the events, but the bulk of the time is dedicated to breakout sessions, Q&A, and facilitating dialogue.
A Ripple Effect
Leon says it’s too early to draw any lessons from the experience but expects to have some by the time the cohort wraps in September and reconvenes in December. For now, he says, the goal is simply to create a ripple effect.
“If we all work together and have a singular mindset of the member experience and our role in it, how much improvement could we see across the department?” he says. “What kind of ripple effect would that have for our department and for our members? That’s how this came about.”
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