CUES Podcast

Being able to demonstrate a member-centric culture at your credit union during a crisis like the current coronavirus pandemic is evidence that you are customer-centric, Carrie Stapp says to lead off this episode. It’s “not just 'Are we friendly?' and 'Do we have the right technology?' but 'Are we really set up as an industry to help our members and to help our communities...

$4.8 billion MSU Federal Credit Union , E. Lansing, Michigan, hires about 10 new staff members a month. The first question these employees tend to ask the organization’s president/CEO is, “When is everyone going to stop saying ‘hi’ to me?” or “When is it going to be real?” That president/CEO, CUES member April Clobes, explains in this episode of the CUES Podcast how she responds to such questions:...

CUES partnered with CUES Supplier member Currency to offer the annual CUES Next Top Credit Union Exec contest for almost a decade. But last year CUES and Currency took a year-long pause to make sure the program was keeping pace with CUES and how the organization is living out its mission to educate and develop credit union CEOs, executives, directors and future leaders. “We had a fantastic nine-ye...

Credit union boards are becoming more interested in whether their composition mirrors that of their memberships. And their memberships are becoming more diverse with time.  So, it’s not surprising that more than half of the respondents to the survey for the new State of Credit Union Governance 2020 report said they’re looking for demographic diversity. This and many other governance topics are dis...

The National Credit Union Administration allows credit unions to make certain “otherwise impermissible,” potentially higher-yielding investments that carry additional risk when credit unions set up certain kinds of programs, including the following: total benefits pre-funding —which helps credit unions offset the rising cost of staff benefits; charitable donation accounts —which require that 51% o...

Creativity is a skill that can be taught, asserts Beta Mannix, Ph. D., in the latest episode of the CUES Podcast. “There are techniques that we can use to teach people how to be more creative,” explains Mannix, Ann Whitney Olin professor of management at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and a lead faculty member for CEO Institute II . For example, teaching team members how to do “structured b...

As new generations continue to mature into the financial services marketplace, the demand for a digital-first customer experience has risen to the forefront. But there is still room at the table for direct mail.  One of our guests—Robert Dudacek, president/CEO of CUES Supplier member Franklin Madison based in Franklin, Tennessee—elaborates early on about the top reason credit unions should use dir...

Almost 40 years ago, Susan Fowler saw something on TV that made her become a vegetarian overnight. This was significant, because at the time Fowler loved meat and had a pot of fat on her stove because “everything tasted better with animal fat.” After her switch, people would say to her, “You are so disciplined about being vegetarian.” But Fowler said becoming and staying vegetarian didn’t require...

When it comes to funding an executive benefits plan, choosing the right investment for the right person and your credit union means knowing both the needs of your executive and your organization’s risk tolerance, says Ramsay Ellis, executive benefits specialist with CUESolutions Platinum provider CUNA Mutual Group , Madison, Wisconsin. Knowing your executive and your organization might be the easy...

True or false? The asset size of a credit union largely dictates the success of a security and education awareness program. According to CUES podcast guest Ray Murphy, CRISC, this statement is definitely false. “Regardless of size, each credit union can have a world-class information security program,” he says in this episode. Chief information security officer and cyber security advisor for LEO C...

Stephen Comer believes simplifying the work of his company’s credit union clients so those client CUs can, in turn, make life easier for their members. Director of financial services and insurance sales at Hyland Software Inc. , Westlake, Ohio,  Steve Comer talks in this episode about how to better connect all the “core systems” in a credit union to all the “content” needed to use those systems to...

Using data from the CUES Executive Compensation Survey is a great way to benchmark your credit union’s base salary and bonus packages—and make sure you’re paying within the strategy your organization has set forth, says Michael Becher, CPA.  Some credit unions decide to pay at the market average, explains Becher, vice president of Industry Insights , Dublin, Ohio, which works with CUES to produce...

2018 CUES Distinguished Director James Sackett joins the show to discuss his own onboarding as a millennial director at $1.3 billion Firefly Credit Union , Burnsville, Minnesota—and to offer additional ideas you can use for your own efforts. Now vice chair of the board at Firefly CU, Sackett’s interest in credit unions started early. His father was a credit union director while Sackett was growing...

This episode’s guest has a professional mantra that aligns well with CUES’ mission of developing credit union CEOs, executives, board members and future leaders. Eric Earle, executive benefits advisor for CUESolutions provider CUNA Mutual Group , Madison, Wisconsin, says the idea he lives by in his work is: “People make good decisions when they’re well informed.” In this episode, Earle talks about...

Jimese Harkley, CUDE, CUES’ VP/membership, previously our guest on episode 67 , returns to the show to talk about the 90-day free trial of CUES Unlimited membership that’s available through Oct. 31 to HR and training professionals. The free trial is designed to boost knowledge about what CUES membership benefits can do for your credit union CUES’ 2013 Next Top Credit Union Exec , Harkley is passio...

A lot of work and preparation goes on before a credit union board interviews a candidate it is considering as a possible next CEO.  The board has considered multiple resumes, decided what questions to ask (and which director will ask them), and oftentimes spent time consulting with an executive search consultant. The candidate has gathered a wealth of experience, gone through such key development...

Many mainstream credit unions have long thought that community development financial institution status wasn’t something they could or should consider. Our guest, Jamie Strayer, ICUDE, would beg to differ. Founder of CU Strategic Planning , Tacoma, Washington, Strayer says CDFI status is a great thing for CUs’ ROA, members and communities, as well as for U.S. taxpayers. Strayer knows a lot about i...

Our guest, organizational scientist Jerlando F. L. Jackson, Ph. D., lives by the mantra, “Organizations are made up of people. It is the people and their decision-making that we want to change.” The Vilas distinguished professor of higher education and the director and chief research scientist of Wisconsin’s Equity and Inclusion Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jackson starts off...

The focus of credit union contact centers has changed a lot in 20 years. While once they emphasized helping members perform transactions, today they focus on helping members deepen their relationships with their credit unions. Our guest in this episode is Terri Panhans, VP/contact center solutions for CUES Supplier member Harland Clarke based in San Antonio, Texas. Panhans talks about how things h...

The lead faculty of the 2019 CUES School of Strategic Marketing joined the CUES Podcast recently to discuss marketing through the lens of their specialties. In this episode, Amy Herbig, Anthony Burnett and James Robert Lay talk about everything from paper brochures to physical branches to digital delivery. They respond to host James Lenz’s “outrageous” statements; offer up best practices grounded...

Jen Kuhn, CEO of Servistar Consulting , Franklin, Tennessee, describes how the good behavior of leaders and managers is key to employee engagement, which in turn is key to the success of credit unions. In this episode, she describes leadership behaviors that promote engagement—and those that promote disengagement. 

Why did CUES restructure its memberships   for 2019? According to Jimese Harkley, CUDE, the change was made for two key reasons: to simplify membership and to enable more credit union leaders and potential leaders to benefit from CUES membership. Learn all about it in this episode of the CUES Podcast, also available on CU Management magazine’s podcasts page . 

In this show, Lynette Cupps, CIE, VP/organizational Development with $1.3 billion MAX Credit Union in Montgomery, Alabama, describes her excitement at being named 2018 CUES Next Top Credit Union Exec. Cupps also talks about her project—how to support non-profit organizations by partnering to provide training for their staff and volunteers; this year’s competition process; and where to go for infor...

In this show, Kathleen O’Connor, Ph. D ., defines what employee engagement really means. An associate professor of management at the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University and a visiting faculty member at London Business School, O’Connor also defines a framework for how to think about engagement. She explains why engagement is worth pursuing and ways credit union leaders...

A charitable donation account is a tool some credit unions use to be more strategic with their charitable giving. These accounts can help credit unions have more funds available to donate while also strengthening the credit union’s financial situation. In this episode, CUNA Mutual Group Executive Benefits Specialist Andy Roquet describes two steps to setting up a CDA, best practices for CDA progra...