The role of human resources used to focus on hiring, onboarding, and administrative paperwork.
HR looks different in 2024.
Workers today consider their whole selves and their entire career, including employee engagement, company culture, professional development, benefits, and hybrid or remote work options. As employee priorities have shifted, many organizations — including credit unions — have struggled to recruit and retain the best talent, leading them to acknowledge employee wellbeing as a business strategy, not just a perk.
Here, credit union leaders consider what these changes look like in practice and how their shops have evolved to meet today’s challenges.
A Modern Role In A Post-COVID World
Pat Schneider is the chief people officer at Chevron Federal Credit Union ($4.8B, Concord, CA). He joined his organization in 2020 with more than 20 years of HR experience and a passion for guiding teams, departments, and companies through turbulence and change.
How has your role evolved over the years? What factors have driven those changes?
Pat Schneider: My role has transformed dramatically from what was traditionally viewed as an administrative HR function into a strategic leadership position that directly influences organizational success. Under the vision of our CEO, I’ve become a critical member of the executive team, actively shaping business strategy and organizational culture.
Several factors have driven this evolution: the intensifying competition for talent across geographic boundaries as remote work becomes normalized; the rapid advancement of technology requiring new skills and digital competencies; and an increasingly complex legal landscape around employment, privacy, and workplace regulations.
The pandemic accelerated this transformation, pushing my team and I to the forefront of crisis management and workplace innovation. I’m now navigating multiple challenges simultaneously — managing hybrid workforces across different time zones, competing both with traditional banks and fintech companies for specialized talent, and adapting to constant technological disruptions that reshape how we work. Additionally, I’m focused on broader strategic initiatives like DEI programs, developing a benefits package to accommodate multiple states, mental health and wellbeing support, and leveraging workforce analytics to make data-driven decisions.
How do your responsibilities differ from traditional HR roles?
PS: Unlike traditional HR roles that primarily focus on administrative functions, my position operates at a far more strategic level. Our CEO recognized the need for this evolution and specifically recruited me to drive this transformation. During the past four years, I’ve strategically restructured our people team, establishing a robust foundation of people operations that handles essential HR functions and risk mitigation, which has positioned me to focus on forward-looking people strategy and organizational development.
My day-to-day responsibilities now include regularly collaborating with our executive team on business strategy, leading digital transformation initiatives affecting our workforce, and developing talent strategies that align with our credit union’s long-term objectives. I’m deeply involved in succession planning, organizational design, and building a culture of innovation. Although managing HR processes are still critical and foundational, I am actively shaping how our organization adapts to industry disruption, leveraging data analytics for workforce planning, and ensuring our talent strategies give us a competitive advantage in an increasingly complex financial services landscape.
Intentional About Diversity And Impact
BJ Jones is the chief diversity and impact officer at Sandia Laboratory Federal Credit Union ($4.1B, Albuquerque, NM). She has 25 years of experience as an HR executive and a long record of community involvement on various nonprofit boards.
How has your role evolved over the years? What factors have driven those changes?
BJ Jones: My role here from 2014 to 2022 included leading our HR and organizational development functions. Then, in October 2022, we adopted an intentional focus on diversity, designing my current role of chief diversity and impact officer while carving out the HR/OD leadership to what is now our chief people officer role.
In the past few years, I have created collaborations both internal and external to our credit union and developed a three-year roadmap focusing on diversity and impact as a lens for how we do business — not as a separate initiative. It aligns with our 2035 strategic plan.
Within that lens we have four focal areas: talent and culture (employees, potential employees, and leaders), members and potential members, communities we serve, and our vendor/supplier relationships. We are beginning to create and track applicable KPIs to understand our progress in each of these focal areas. It is exciting to see our partnerships evolve and how diversity and inclusion are weaving into every aspect of our business planning, strategic planning, and operations.
How do your responsibilities differ from traditional HR roles?
BJ: We intentionally created this role to live outside of the HR structure since its scope expands past an internal employee focus. Focusing on inclusion and growth is different from the traditional, and critical, equal employment or affirmative action compliance activities that live in the HR area.
It is a great opportunity to consciously focus on our cultural competency within each business unit within the credit union and to exhibit to our members, our communities, and our partners. We can focus on how our brand, our products and services, and our philanthropy and volunteerism intentionally reflect the rich diversity of the markets we serve and contribute to our strategic journey and growth.
Encouragement And Support
Darryl Shiroma is the vice president of talent development at HawaiiUSA Federal Credit Union ($2.5B, Honolulu, HI), where he has worked for more than 16 years. The credit union was named one of Hawaii Business Magazine’s Best Places to Work in 2024.
How has your role evolved over the years? What factors have driven those changes?
Darryl Shiroma: People need more support now than before, whether it’s a mentor or a coach, and COVID-19 disrupted that. It allowed us to work remotely. It allowed us to turn off our cameras. So, how do you connect people as a workforce?
I cannot do it by myself. I have to do it through our leadership, so some of the work is convincing them that this is what’s needed. This is what’s going to inspire them — not just the taskmaster but somebody who can be collegial, somebody who won’t always and only expect hustle culture from them. You need to help managers understand what’s important to today’s workforce.
How do your responsibilities differ from traditional HR roles?
DS: I never saw myself as an HR professional. Ask the average person what HR does, and they would say payroll, interviewing, and the rule enforcer. HR needs to be more strategic. There’s a blending of the lines between a traditional HR role and what might be something more developmental. You have to create culture. You have to reinforce culture through your policies, through your practices, through your onboarding.
It’s not just enough to be a great recruiter. You have to build that relationship, and you also have to be honest. You don’t want to fool people into what they’re getting themselves into. This means being honest and clear about who and what we are — and what we are not.
I also think traditional HR roles are more reactive where we now have to be more proactive — whether that’s through engagement surveys or we want to hear what’s working and not working. We also look at data like turnover and productivity. In the past, maybe HR never asked managers how they’re doing with their goals or key performance indicators.
Interviews have been edited and condensed.