“Idle time”—theperiods during which branch staff is not performing member-facingtransactions or other meaningful tasks—presents a major challengefor credit unions (CUs). An FMSI study hasdetermined it is common for idle time to account for up to 30% ofthe time a credit union employee spends during paid working hoursat the branch.

Idle time does not have to be non-productive time. Effectivemanagement, paired with employee training, accountability andscheduling of tasks within defined idle time, can help credit unionstaff put idle time to better use. In this article, we'll explorespecific strategies to help structure idle time and then enacttargeted plans to use it productively.

Idle Time: Bad Business for Good Employees

Idle time has become such a negative bottom line impact that, inmany of the staff exit interviews from financial institutions usedin FMSI's studies, departing employees cite boredom from idletime as one of their reasons for dissatisfaction. Creditunions try to fill idle time, but often do so ineffectively becauseit has previously been unpredictable and can be short-lived.

Employees may be afraid to walk away from their stations forfear that the credit union will suddenly get busy. Or, they maystart inappropriate, complicated activities and end up overlyfocused on those when a member is waiting to be served. This looseapproach tends to dilute member service and reduce the accuracy ofwhatever task the employee is performing at the time.

Financial Pain and Drain

The performance differential between credit unions that do anddo not optimize idle time can vary drastically. One example is the$900 million, Kansas-based Meritrust Credit Union, which hastransformed how it is handling staff idle time by schedulingan appropriate number of employees at all times, identifying lullperiods in transaction activity, andthen assigning specific sales, service andtraining tasks during these times.

For the project, Meritrust's management team decided to set afirst-year goal of increasing the credit union's productivity by10%, an accomplishment it was able to achieve within seven monthsof program roll-out. Meritrust also reduced itsteller labor cost per transaction (LCPT) from $1.09 to $0.96in its first year, resulting in $156,000 in annualized labor costsavings. The CU's second-year goal is another double-digitproductivity increase, with correlating reductions in LCPT.

Strategies That Work

Meritrust and other credit unions achieve control of idle timethrough several mechanisms, including employee education andtraining for both productivity and accountability, and proactivestaff scheduling.

Meritrust's success with scheduling was facilitated byintelligence gathering that enabled the credit union to gain a firmgrip on forecasting account holder traffic – including thepredicted incidence of idle time – and then structure its schedulesaround those forecasts.

There isn't enough room in this article to discuss the specificsof choosing (or developing) a technology solution to achieveprecise scheduling through accurate forecasting. Fortunately,implementing a credit union-wide scheduling system is not anabsolute prerequisite to achieving some improvement in idle timemanagement.

Without a dedicated technology solution to assist in identifyingidle time periods, you can rely on observation and the opinions ofsupervisors to identify periods where your staff tends to sit idle.For these periods, plan ahead to designate one or more employee toperform idle time tasks, then track the results – and how accurateyour scheduling estimates were – to provide data for furtherprogram tweaking.

Next Page: Productive Time

Turning Idle Time into ProductiveTime

One of the keys to helping your staff achieve better use of idletime is to train them when to perform tasks and what tasks theyshould attempt, then hold them accountable for initiating thesetasks during your identified “slow periods.” Following are a fewideas to get you started.

1. Have back office departments define short, special projectsthat could be handled in the branches during idle time.(i.e., every department has some kind of file scrubbingefforts to be done.)
2. Develop a positive outbound calling program to account holdersduring idle time. The message needs to be one of value to theaccount holder.
3. Create short cross-training programs and have staff worktogether on training during idle time.
4. Instruct idle employees to assist the lending department withpaperwork for filing titles, recording documents with appropriateagencies, etc.
5. Ask staff for suggestions on how to better utilize unscheduled,identified idle time, and you will receive manysuggestions. No one wants to sit idle and be bored.

Achieving Optimal Results

Surveys show that members will wait for assistance as long asfive minutes, on average, before they become dissatisfied. Yet,many credit unions over-schedule, because they are afraid to let amember wait for even a minute.

To make the most of your program, take advantage of member waittime expectations. Schedule as precisely as you can and establishspecific timeframes for “idle time” work. Then, instruct the excessstaff to leave their stations during these work periods and notre-engage account holders unless management instructs them to doso.

If you are still struggling with inefficient use of idle timeafter initiating your program, consider investigating staffscheduling technologies, which typically include daily idle timemeasurements per individual staff and branches. Several companiesoffer these types of solutions, and they have documented benefit inachieving better branch productivity – including idle timereduction.

Final Thoughts

As technologies such as online and mobile banking continue topush transactions out of the branch, staff idle time willonly grow for credit unions that do not proactively addressit. Having branch management keep a close watch on itsstaff's use of idle time and implement proper scheduling tools,training and awareness programs will enable them to put excesslabor capacity to work. The results will surprise you.

W. Michael Scott ispresident/CEO of FMSIin Alpharetta, Ga.