Two New White Papers - 'Branch Strategies' & 'Conducting A Training Needs Analysis'

CUNA Councils
October 6, 2009 | COMMENTS

Branch building will continue in the near future, but it will be tempered by economic realities and lack the aggressive posture of the past. That's the message of “Branch Strategies,” a new white paper just released by the CUNA Operations, Sales & Service (OpSS) Council. The paper also presents compelling evidence that the slowdown will affect both banks and credit unions.

Branch expansion requires a significant investment, but also generates a better than average adjusted ROI, according to research conducted by the Applied Research Institute of the California and Nevada leagues cited in the paper. Branch locations also drive checking growth and primary financial institutional status, the research also found.

Credit unions may take another look at the grocery store branch business model as more switch to community charters. There are advantages: the market research has already been done, foot traffic is guaranteed, the cost is much less than a traditional branch and the hours are extended. There are, of course, disadvantages with a lack of a drive-up and lack of control over the lease and building, a small space and high transactions and sometimes low loan volumes.

A new type of branch employee is evolving both in the grocery store and in the traditional branch. As the branch evolves more to an advisory from a transactional role, employees are becoming cross trained in opening accounts, loan applications, CDs, sales and the branch staff can no longer be just an order taker. Most importantly, the new branch employee has to be a relationship builder.

Conducting A Training Needs Analysis For Your Credit Union

During periods of budget tightening at credit unions, a training needs analysis (TNA) can give credit unions a rifle-shot approach toward meeting essential training needs as opposed to the shotgun approach that may not pinpoint the training that is most needed. This advice is from a recently published paper by the CUNA HR/TD Council, “Conducting a Training Needs Analysis for Your Credit Union.”

The white paper includes three case studies that have used TNA successfully. Their training leaders note that both a formal and informal TNA process are designed to do more than identify topics for classes at the credit union. The TNA should also advance progress toward the credit union's strategic goals, refine training tactics, improve communication, offer opportunities for personal development and enhance workplace performance. The white paper also discusses both the formal and informal approaches as it explores credit union's current options for learning more about employees' need for training.

CUNA Council members are entitled to complimentary copies of these and more than 200 white papers; non-members may purchase the white papers for a price of $50 per copy.

The papers are available online in the white paper section of each council site – select the “OpSS” tab for the branch strategies white paper and the "HR/TD" tab for the TNA paper.