I've been with Belco Community Credit Union for just over adecade and since working here I've held a lot of different HRroles. And in that time I've seen a lot of change in our workplace,both in our practices and the people. For me, being in HR hasalways meant playing an important role in maintaining goodrelationships between people so that everyone can work together tohelp our business, meet their individual goals and understand howthe two connect.

Belco is a not-for-profit credit union serving the South CentralPennsylvania region and for us, business is all aboutrelationships. We take great pride in our member service. So, weplayed to our strengths and started turning that member servicementality inwards to our people. The reason is simple: Like manyorganizations, we've been really focused on improving our employeeengagement over the last few years.

Our Story From the Beginning

To start, we looked at engagement scores on our employeesatisfaction survey and used them as our baseline. Once we had agood idea of where we were at, we decided where we wanted to be andthen looked at what we needed to do to get there.

One of the first changes we made, and the one that had thebiggest impact, was getting our managers to have regular one-on-onemeetings with employees. We wanted managers to work more closelywith their reports, understand their personal needs for growth anddevelopment, and just have more time overall to talk aboutperformance and goals. These meetings also helped re-establish acritical skill: People skills.

Making Time for One-On-One Meetings

It's not that people don't know how to communicate, but there isa lot of interaction lost when nobody meets in person or even picksup the phone to call someone. In business, especially one likeours, being able to interact one-on-one is really important.

This has worked well for us because it has helped developrelationships between co-workers and gives managers really goodinsight into where employees want to go and how they learnbest.

Having the one-on-one meetings being focused and tracked hashelped us ensure the face time managers and employees have isproductive, but also, as a company, we've been able to see thatyes, these meetings are working thanks to the ability to pull datafrom the technology we use to support our activities. It's made iteasier for employees, managers, HR – everyone – to track meetings,goals, successes and challenges and then talk about them duringtheir in-person meetings.

For example, prior to each monthly one-on-one meeting, we askemployees to make an entry into the system that outlines whatthey're interested in learning or a skill set they want to develop,and then who can support them in taking the next step. This way,managers are aware of these interests before the meetings takeplace and can talk with employees about it. Afterwards, managershelp employees coordinate a time to shadow their peer or attendadditional training, anything that will help someone learn whatthey want to.

Feedback: Good, Bad and Ugly

Another big change we made was emphasizing the importance offeedback – both positive and negative. It became clear to us whenwe started meeting with employees more that they really do careabout how they are doing and what they can do to improve. Theydon't want things sugar coated – they want straight-up honestfeedback. This is what helps create transparency.

We did some training on how to give quality feedback and reallypushed managers to give it often and in the moment, not just duringtheir one-on-ones. Tons of research has proven that when employeesare interested in their work and feel connected to their workplace,they are more productive and businesses see better results.Clearly, we want to be successful as a business, but we also wantto be successful in attracting and retaining high-qualityemployees.

The ROI of Improving the EmployeeExperience

We want to be an employer of choice in our region, and we wantto attract great talent and keep that talent, too. We want peopleto know exactly how they're performing at work and what they can doto develop and grow in their career on an ongoing basis. Our focuswas on improving relations between managers and employees, andbetween employees themselves with the hope that the end goal wouldbe better employee engagement all around.

And here's the kicker – our up front communication, andfeedback-heavy approach is working. We exceeded our three-yearengagement goal after just one year. Right now, our employeeengagement score is at 76%. That is a five point increase sincelast year and is well ahead of the 68% U.S. average. And our mostrecent job satisfaction survey revealed a 35% increase, once againrising above the national average, which sits at 59%.

Our position on talent management is this: Make it about thepeople. At the end of the day that's what matters: Employees whoare engaged and satisfied with their work, in a place they areproud to work for, with people they enjoying working with.

We've only been able to accomplish this because everybody has tobe on board with making these changes. We had buy-in from ourexecutive group from the get go. You can't talk the talk withoutwalking the walk. Trust, reliability and transparency are key, butyou can't just say these things. You have to actually live it forpeople to believe it's real.

Blake Wise is the Senior HR & TrainingSpecialist for Belco Community CU. He can be reachedat [email protected].