Every day, your employees are performing thousands of transactions and interacting with thousands of customers. And because of the nature of financial services, when employees make mistakes it can result in lost money, fines, a loss of trust, and audit findings.
So the question is: how can you help employees NOT make mistakes?
And how can ScreenSteps help?
As I've helped companies write policies and procedures for their ScreenSteps knowledge base, I've witnessed the advantages of writing your compliance documents so that employees can not only pass off compliance training requirements but also perform tasks correctly.
Watch the video below to learn how ScreenSteps can help your credit union's employees be compliant with policies and procedures.
In it, I share three common approaches you are probably using to maintain compliance. Then I'll explain the downfall of these approaches. And I'll wrap up with five ways ScreenSteps helps fill in the gaps.
3 approaches financial institutions use to maintain compliance
Typically, when companies and financial institutions need employees to be compliant with procedures, they do three things:
Approach 1: Use an LMS
First, credit unions use an LMS and off-the-shelf e-learning.
Pros: It’s affordable, it scales really well, and you can show examiners a report that says everybody took it.
Cons: It’s generic, forgettable, and employees don’t always see how it applies in their day-to-day routines.
The typical outcome is that employees pass the assessment but are unable to recall what they learned, let alone apply what they learned when it really matters.
Approach 2: Document Management System
Second, credit unions upload PDF policies and procedures to their intranet or a shared drive.
Pros: This satisfies the requirement to have policies and procedures.
Cons: Frontline employees don’t use PDFs because they’re difficult to find and not easy to follow. And managers aren’t even sure if employees are using the procedures because there aren’t any metrics.
Another challenge that many credit unions have is that PDFs, Word files, spreadsheets, PowerPoint, and sticky notes are all over the place. There's no ONE location to find answers.
🔍 Related: How to Document Procedures in Your Bank or Credit Union (5 Steps)
Approach 3: In-person training
Third, managers and trainers individually work with employees to teach and remind employees how to do procedures.
Pros: This has a personal touch and can be customized to what employees need.
Cons: This approach doesn’t scale and it’s not consistent between managers and trainers. Plus, employees forget what they were told when they’re actually performing a transaction.
Another thing to consider is how exhausting this is for managers, trainers, and your credit union's internal support team. Being asked the same questions again and again gets old really fast.
The downfall of these approaches
The thing is, none of these approaches are designed to help frontline employees, in highly regulated industries like financial services, consistently do the procedures at the moment they are actually doing the procedures.
Aka: These approaches don't address the problem.
The approaches above require employees to memorize, intuitively know, or learn by repeatedly getting help from a co-worker.
What an ideal approach looks like
In a perfect world, you’d have a resource that enables employees to perform each transaction and handle each customer interaction at the moment they’re actually doing it.
No need to memorize all the steps for all 150 procedures at your credit union. No need for all of your employees to be experts at all the regulations. No need to call somebody every time you have a question.
The resource would also provide reports on who is using what, which procedures need updating, and it would notify everybody when things change.
Well, that’s what ScreenSteps does.
5 ways ScreenSteps can help your credit union with compliance
ScreenSteps is a cloud knowledge base that is designed to enable employees to follow the right procedure, step-by-step, at the moment they are doing it. Here are five ways ScreenSteps can help your credit union's employees do every transaction perfectly.
1. Organize everything in one place
First, all of your departments can contribute to the ScreenSteps knowledge base so that it becomes your one-stop shop for policies and procedures (with the flexibility of restricting viewing and authoring permissions).
Most credit unions have product guides, procedures, job aids, and work instructions scattered around and employees are confused about where to go when they need information.
ScreenSteps can be used to organize the procedures for all of your departments.
2. Make your guides easier to find
Second, using optimized search, in less than 3 seconds your employees can pull up applicable job aids, checklists, decision trees, procedures, and step-by-step guides every time they do a task or help a customer.
3. Provide resources to use during training
Third, trainers can use these resources as part of their training curriculum and stop the cycle of forgetting.
After training is over, employees can use ScreenSteps while completing a transaction or interacting with a customer. This reinforces what they learn without asking a manager or a coworker for a reminder.
4. Provide usage reports
Fourth, management can view reports to see who is using what as well as what employees are searching for.
Note: In the last year, one financial institution we worked with saw that their 1,200 employees had viewed procedures almost 1 million times. Turns out, employees really, REALLY like having a resource they can go to for information.
5. Keep procedures up to date
Fifth, ScreenSteps will keep track of when your procedures need updates and it allows your teams to give feedback when changes to procedures need to be made.
And once an update is made you can send a notification to your departments and log when employees acknowledge the update.
Provide your employees with a reliable resource at their fingertips
When companies use ScreenSteps, employees have the policies and procedures at their fingertips. This results in fewer mistakes, more consistent operations, and more effective training that allows for quicker onboarding and cross-training.
How would it change your credit union's operations if employees had a reliable resource at their fingertips?
With ScreenSteps knowledge base for credit unions, you have a one-stop shop where employees know they can find answers to their questions.
Think ScreenSteps could simplify compliance at your credit union? Set up a time to talk to a ScreenSteps rep to see how ScreenSteps could improve compliance with your unique credit union.
