Federal Credit Union Interview Report

The organization I picked for my Interview paper was First Capital Federal Credit Union. The credit union is a non-profit organization in the public sector that solely operates on the benefits of its members. Before taking the name First Capital Federal Credit Union, the organization originally went by the name S. Morgan Smith Credit Union, and later became known as Allis Chalmers Credit Union when the company was acquired by the S. Morgan Smith Company on April 1, 1959.

In 1986, Allis Chalmers Corporation broke up and the Credit Union was incorporated at the federal level on November 15, 1993, and became known as First Capital Federal Credit Union. The branch where I conducted my interview is at 2602 Course Road, York, PA, the branch reopened

on August 2009 after the South York branch was closed. For my Interview paper, I met with a branch manager from First Capital Federal Credit Union in York PA. Before becoming a branch manager, she started out as a supervisor on the teller line, then an assistant branch manager, and now a branch manager: a position she has been doing for three years.
Considering the small number of employees at the credit union, I was astonished to find that she does not have a typical day, and each day was different.

Her main responsibilities, and duties include overseeing the day to day operations of the branch, providing support and guidance for the branch staff, visiting local businesses to try and grow her branch, approving, and not approving loans her lending staff requests for their members, training new hires, helping members and reporting daily, weekly, and monthly on various aspects of banking.

The most critical problem my interviewee encountered the past year was staffing, she had a handful of employees leaving several positions in her branch that needed filling. Moreover, the process of hiring and training took some time, and getting the staff in place was time consuming. Other critical problem my interviewee encountered is calming down the customers after a misunderstanding with a bank teller.

A problem she will expect to encounter in the future is always competing with other financial institutions for loans and account business and working hard to keep their members’ business with First Capital Federal Credit Union. What’s more is, she expects to encounter challenges of improving the customer experience, increasing staff satisfaction, reducing costs and improving the branch’s

efficiency.
The most critical skills needed to be a successful manager are managing multiple projects at once to meet multiple deadlines, need to multi-task and the ability to provide excellent member service. Other skills branch manager needs are assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action. Furthermore, Communication is a critical skill needed to be a successful branch manager, using verbal communication skills, and written communication skills. The two communication skills are vital in the workday of the branch manager I interviewed.
The major reasons that branch managers fail, is not being able to multi-task, and failure to grow their lending area. Poor Interpersonal skills is another reason, it is paramount for a branch manager to be a great listener, and to be self-conscious of their words choices. The third reason that branch managers fail is the Inability to rebound by not taking responsibility for their mistakes: figuring out where they went wrong instead of blaming their co-workers. Excess self-reliance is the fourth reason that branch managers fail, delegating tasks is necessary and part of the job. Delegating can be challenging in the context that you must find the appropriate person for the task, and you must be fair to all the team members.
The outstanding abilities of other effective managers she has known are: the ability to work and oversee multiple personality types of subordinates, attention to detail and managing multiple tasks at once. The advice she has for someone who is still in school, and wishes to pursue a managerial career in her field, is to learn as much as much as they can about the financial institution they work for, she also recommends that a person learns as many jobs within the industry they work for: going above, and beyond their Job expectations, and showing initiative to learn as much as they can. The branch manager I interviewed did not answer the question of which skills that seems to be lacking in recent graduates.
After conducting this Interview, I would say communication is the most important skill that branch manager needs, not only was it mentioned by my interviewee, it was also given a scale of 5 on the extent on which she used the skill in her daily work. Other skills that are required to be a successful branch manager are flexibility and adaptability, self-confidence, leadership, and high energy levels, as my interviewee stated, you need to motivate your team. Ethics, honesty and Integrity are important too. In addition, problem solving abilities, and decisiveness are other core skills a branch manager needs to perform at his best.
Lastly, a critical skill that is necessary as a branch manager is teamwork, whether it’s visiting other local businesses to grow her branch or delegating tasks to subordinates, working with other members of your institution or society is an important component of becoming a branch manager.
In chapter one of the business management course we learnt about the functions of a manager like: planning, organizing, leading and controlling. In the interview, the branch manager meets these four functions, as seen when she leads other team members like bank tellers, and assistant branch managers. She visits other local businesses, consequently she can be able to come up with a plan for growing her branch. A different way she meets the function of planning is when she team building activities to keep her subordinates content.
My interviewee meets the organizing function by using interpersonal skills when delegating tasks appropriately to subordinates.

She meets the last function of controlling the organization by approving (or not approving) loans that her lending staff request for her member. Moreover, she controls the standard of that branch by the type of employees she hires, and the number of employees she hires.

In chapter two of the business management course we learned of the term structured problems; these are straightforward, familiar, and easily defined problems. In the Interview, the problem arose from the employees leaving several positions in her branch, to combat the familiar problem, the branch manager recruited new employees, to resolve the problem. For this specific problem, the manager must follow the organization’s procedure to solve the problem.

In conclusion, the interview gave me a broad overview of the daily work day of a branch manager like the importance of teamwork, and communication. On top of that, it was amazing to witness a real-world application of the concepts taught in class like the functions of a manager, and the skills of a manager. The lessons that I got from the interview are, researching the Industry that you are working for, learning as much as possible within your field, the importance of interpersonal skills, and working with others, lastly, going above, and beyond of your job expectation, and showing a willingness to

learn.
Using the scale of 1(very rarely) to 5 (constantly), my interviewee rated the extent to which she uses the following skills during her workday. For the following skills: Interviewing, disciplining others, appraising other’s performance, and negotiating, she had a scale of one, and were skills that she used the least during her work day. Skills that received a scale of two were managing conflicts, gaining and using power to orchestrate change. Furthermore, she had a scale of three on managing personal stress, setting goals, and conducting meetings.
Making private decisions, facilitating group decision making, recognizing, defining and solving problems are skills that received a scale of four, these skills are central when working as a branch manager. To end with, the skills that are overwhelmingly utilized during her work days and received a scale of five are using written communication skills (reports, and memos), delegating, motivating others, listening, empathizing, and team building.