This is a CEO’s statement from the monthly staff update:
“Our credit union is in a very commoditized business of financial services; most of our products and services can be purchased elsewhere. So our difference is you, how we treat each other and our members, to truly change lives one person at a time in our community.”
And then a reminder of two guiding principles: 1) Every person has a story, and 2) Do the right thing.
The future of the industry
Recently, consultant Ancin Cooley, in a LinkedIn post, described why doing the right thing happens rarely to employees in a merged credit union.
His recent blog should be posted in the employee lounge of every credit union office. Mergers of well-run credit unions not only eliminate a locally grounded financial institution, they also end employees’ investment in their professional future. Following is his analysis of the impact of mergers on the most important “difference makers” in every credit union:
How Credit Union Mergers Rob the Next Generation of What Was Freely Given to the Last
The consolidation cheerleaders talk about member impact, technology investments, and competitive positioning.
The executives advocating loudest for mergers built careers in an industry that had room for them. They were given opportunities for CEO, CFO, and CLO roles at shops, and VP positions at institutions that no longer exist because they’ve since been absorbed. Those jobs paid mortgages, put kids through college, and built retirements.
The ladder they climbed is being pulled up behind them
Every merger eliminates leadership positions—CEO, CFO, CLO, and VPs. Two credit unions become one, and half the top roles vanish. For early-career workers, this means fewer rungs up the corporate ladder to reach for. The CEO role at that $350 million credit union that could have been theirs in fifteen years? Absorbed into a $1 billion merger. Gone. ‘Good luck, bud…’
For mid-career professionals who’ve spent a decade building expertise, the chair they were positioning for no longer exists. They did everything right.
The ‘efficiencies’ folks celebrate are your career and your money
When merger advocates toast economies of scale and eliminated redundancies, translate that: they’re toasting eliminated people.
Early-career workers lose the broad exposure that builds future executives. The young professional at a $200 million credit union who might touch lending, compliance, member service, and strategy? At the merged $3 billion institution, they’re a specialist in a silo, building narrow skills with no line of sight to leadership.
Mid-career professionals find their expertise deemed ‘redundant’ when two departments become one. One compliance officer survives. One lending director. One marketing lead. Senior professionals get offered early retirement packages or the dignity of reporting to someone who was their peer last quarter.
The mission is being sold off by people it already paid
Many younger workers chose credit unions over banks because they wanted work that meant something. The idea that finance could serve people rather than extract from them. Now they watch executives who built wealth and reputation on cooperative principles abandon those principles for scale and extraction. The same leaders who gave conference speeches about ‘people helping people’ or ‘Main Street Values’ now give conference speeches about ‘competitive positioning’ and ‘Market Forces.’
To the Millennials, Gen Z, and future Gen Alpha workers in this movement: the path is narrower than it should be. And they owe you more than a picture with a politician and the ability to ‘crash’ an event. But the mission that drew you here is still worth fighting for, and you might be the generation that reclaims and rebuilds it.
Every person’s chance to act
Every proposed merger of a sound credit union depends on the overt support or quiet acceptance of staff. In these situations, they are the first line of defense for “doing the right thing” for members and their communities.
Remaining obedient or quiescent as leaders plan the demise of their institutions’ integrity and future will compromise the values underpinning both personal and corporate purpose. Speaking up is never easy. But that is what makes a democracy work in a credit union or a country.
