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Staffing Factor
When Connery became inUnison's CIO, Envision's IT shop numbered 28 people; First Calgary's had 14. But rather than cut back on head count, Connery went on a hiring spree. "The easy way to drive down cost is to trim staff," he says. "But we wanted to increase value and capacity. Both groups were understaffed. It wasn't a streamlining operation. We needed more people."
Connery inherited two data centers an hour apart by air, which gave inUnison a good platform for disaster recovery/business continuity. But the real challenge was transforming the IT staff from one with a custodial mind-set to a more proactive group of business analysts and security experts who would not only enable inUnision's growth, but also allow the company to roll out services for other credits unions.
Staff continuity was one of Connery's biggest concerns. He tried to reassure jittery team members that the merger would create greater opportunities. He had a lot of one-on-one sit-down chats: There would be a place for everyone, and more challenging work. There were no layoffs and, surprisingly, there turned out to be no redundant jobs, though five people opted to move to other departments or leave the company.
"What I've learned from all of my past mergers is that you have to answer the people question first," Connery says. "If you want to be successful, the people need to feel that they have a part to play in the success. They need to know that you need them to help you build the future and that their role in this is important."
To build a common culture, Connery outfitted the new combined department with inUnison golf shirts and handed out logo coffee mugs and pens. He created an e-newsletter to spread the word inside the company. The leadership team came up with performance indicators to measure results, involving business leaders in the process to foster buy-in. The CEO and CIO took workers out to casual lunches to share their vision. IT managers from both credit unions went on a two-day planning retreat.
Nonetheless, there were challenges. Only about a third of the jobs were held by IT professionals who had real tech skills and training; the rest of the staff had learned while doing. "Seventy percent of the folks came in through other projects at the credit union," he says. "Both companies were maintenance and support organizations. The level of expertise wasn't great. We don't have the skills to be a service company."
To fill the gaps, Connery lured part-time contractors to work full time, beefing up his business analysis and security staff, two key areas of growth. He hired search firms and even paid relocation costs to attract workers from other parts of the country to fill these jobs. He also increased the training budget so older team members could learn new skills. Professional development became part of performance reviews. "I'm focused on internal education," Connery says. "We spend a lot of time on management and technical education. From the CEO down, everyone has an educational component in their job performance."
Today the combined department employs 77 people, split between the two locations. The staff is broken down into two major divisions: partner services and operations. Partner services has 20 people, including relationship managers, business analysts, project managers and product managers. Operations has more than 50 people, including experts in security, networks and telecom, as well as technical analysts, technical architects, DBAs, systems analysts and help desk staff. Half the staff are trained professionals.
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