Musings from the CU Suite

Written by Anthony Demangone

I love me some Gallup.

The research firm recently completed a survey that asked employees how satisfied they were with various aspects of their job.  Here was the overall results:

The results are interesting. People love the relationship they have with coworkers. At the bottom, though, one thing stuck out. Stress.

Sixty-three percent of employees were completely or somewhat satisfied with the amount of stress in their jobs. Now, there are two ways to look at that. 

• First, 63 percent is a healthy majority of folks who don't seem to have a problem with stress.
• On the other hand, the amount of stress seems to be one of the least satisfying parts of the workplace. 

Since this survey is one point in time, it would be good to see how stress scored historically. Gallup supplies that data as well.

This would indicate that stress has been a constant - almost evenly through financial crisis. Hmmm. Didn't expect that.

But all of this begs the question....If stress is one of the worst parts of the workplace experience, what can we do about it?

But that begs a few more questions...

• Just what are people stressed about? Their commute? Their review? Until you know that answer, how can you fix it?
• Is all stress bad? Individuals, and organizations, should venture from their comfort zone. And that is sometimes stressful. But the stress and worrying gets us thinking about how we can improve things.  Should we even focus on removing stress at all? 

I wish I had answers today, but I do not - simply questions and data that beg more data and more questions! But here's a final question or two.

Do any of you measure stress in your shop? If so, how? And what do you do with that data? 

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this one! 

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Savings end this Friday on two great NAFCU educational events.

• NAFCU's Strategic Growth Conference will be held in San Diego from March 8-10.  This event is devoted to helping your bottom line. For credit union professionals who are always looking for ways to increase membership, loans and income, this is the conference for you.
• NAFCU's Regulatory Compliance School will be held in the Washington, D.C. area from March 14-18. If compliance is important to your credit union, you should have someone here. Attendees are put through a one-week gauntlet of education training. Attendees can also sit for series of exams to obtain the prestigious NCCO designation. This is perfect for new compliance, risk and auditing folks. And it is also a great event for executives who may find themselves managing their credit union's compliance function.