Companies increasingly are looking inward to their own employees as an essential talent source. In fact, IBM's global leadership survey found that CEOs ranked investing in people as the best way to drive performance. Surprisingly, IBM also discovered that about half of all surveyed companies were not pursuing any skill development programs, even when only 41% thought they employed enough sufficiently skilled people to implement strategy.

The primary outward-facing solution, recruitment of new talent, gives credit unions a leg up. Millennials and now iGen, born after 1995 and the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone, list mission and values as top reasons to choose a workplace. A credit union's mission should prove appealing to this demographic, which is most likely to possess the needed digital skills. "Doing well by doing good" is an appealing message that is fitting when the organizational mission focuses on serving all credit union's stakeholders, including the community, its members and employees.

A culture of learning is indispensable for talent development and creates a more engaged workforce. Through internal and external learning programs and moving people across units, this can better match skills and employees' professional goals, while also providing new opportunities and stretch assignments that support growth. Employees become more engaged when skill development and learning are integral to their work and fit their experience and career goals. They appreciate it when their talent development enables a larger, more meaningful impact to the organization. When leadership acknowledges an employee's accomplishment, engagement further increases.

A multidisciplinary environment is needed to integrate digital strategies like data science and machine learning. Silos cannot persist when IT, finance, risk management, regulatory compliance, marketing and member outreach must work together to implement any plan. And leadership must be agile to adapt quickly to business transformations. They must provide the ever-changing learning tools necessary just to keep up, and they must assure that the organization supports experimentation and needed technological iteration. This is a complicated dance for leaders to manage, and a culture trust and learning is foundational to this cross functional work.

While technical skills are clearly needed, soft skills top the list of essential leadership traits required to navigate increasing complexity. Soft skills include communication, teamwork, critical thinking, conflict resolution, ethics, integrity and importantly, flexibility and adaptability in managing rapid and accelerating workplace change. Like technical capabilities, soft skills can be developed through management attention and investment in people, which includes coaching and learning programs. The effective employee combination of hard and soft skills positions them to drive the organization forward. No one can foresee exactly what future talent needs will be. We do know that enabling your people to reach their full potential through a commitment to employee growth and learning will give your credit union the much-needed edge in this digital age.

Stuart Levine

Stuart R. Levine is Chairman and CEO for Stuart Levine & Associates and EduLeader LLC. He can be reached at 516-465-0800 or [email protected].