At Mission Federal Credit Union, Chief Executive Debra Schwartz believes you serve your better if you look like your .
To test if that was indeed the case, the financial institution conducted a study of its roughly 600 employee workforce and compared the results with the latest U.S. Census demographic data for San Diego County.
“We are an exact mirror,” said Schwartz. “We have, I think, 47 percent Hispanic employees and 5 percent African American employees. We even have 2 percent Native American employees.”
That diversity is both intentional and unintentional, she said. “When you are hiring the best people from within the community and you’re open-minded, you tend to get a diverse group of employees.”
Mission Fed won the large company category in this year’s San Diego Union-Tribune’s Top Workplaces survey, where employees of companies across San Diego County fill out surveys ranking what they like — and don’t like — about the places where they earn a paycheck.
The survey was done by Energage, a suburban Philadelphia firm that partners with the Union-Tribune for the project. The winners are based solely on the survey data.
Employees offered up a variety of reasons why Mission Fed is a good place to work. But a few common themes emerged.
Several workers said they feel valued. Others said they learn something every day, and that managers are ive. Some cited flexibility, including being able to balance the job with being a mother of an autistic child.
But the word that comes up most often is community.
“I enjoy being a part of our community and working with team who the same values as our mission,” said one employee. “It’s wonderful to hear in the community, ‘You work for Mission Fed? We love that credit union!’”
“It’s very clear to me how we contribute positively to our community, and I feel appreciated in the work I do,” wrote another worker.
Mission Fed is the largest credit union exclusively serving San Diego County, with 33 branches, $4.5 billion in assets and $3.72 billion in deposits.
Founded initially for educators, hip is now open to all county residents. More than 262,000 are of Mission Fed today, ranking it among the top 50 largest credit unions in the country.
“I am a big believer that the member experience cannot exceed the employee experience,” said Schwartz. “Employees have to feel you are honest and intentional and doing what you need to do, and they will let your and potential know.”
Mission Fed’s focus on community has been a foundation for its diversity efforts. About five years ago, the credit union set up a Hispanic Advisory Committee and has expanded its services and marketing to the region’s Latin community.
Mission Fed’s goal was to increase Hispanic hip by 12 percent this year. With COVID-19, it’s coming up short but is still making good strides, said Schwartz.
Now Mission Fed has taken the template from its efforts to appeal to more Latino and created a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion group to further expand its outreach to underserved populations.
“We asked for volunteers,” said Schwartz. “We were hoping to get 10 individuals. We got three times that.”
Schwartz is navigating the credit union through a second crisis with the pandemic. She was named chief executive in September 2008, just as wreckage of the Great Recession hit.
Mission Fed lost $22 million that year. But Schwartz said she knew the credit union “had good bones.” As her team prepared the budget for the following year, it looked like more red ink was in store.
“I said no,” she recalls. “We’re going to make $1 if it kills us.”
Her staff still laughs about that, she said. “ when you said we were going to make $1 and this year we made $69 million. Look how far we’ve come.”
With COVID-19, 2020’s financial results won’t be as good as past years. Still, Schwartz expects Mission Fed to make roughly $25 million.
The credit union has plenty of reserves against an expected increase in loan losses. Its capital-to-assets ratio is above 12 percent. That’s above the 7 percent standard for credit unions to be considered well-capitalized.
Perhaps the hardest part of the pandemic for Mission Fed employees is dealing with who refuse to wear masks. A few have caused a scene by yelling at branch employees or spitting on the floor, said Schwartz.
Mission Fed’s mantra has always been member service first. “I read all the member complaints and responded to every single member complaint, always,” she said. “But during this, if you don’t want to wear a mask, you can’t do business with us in person. There are six other ways you can interact with us, but you can’t come into the branch.”
Mission Fed has made sure that branch employees know they have total from management on the mask issue, said Schwartz.
While Mission Fed has $576 million of loans in the pipeline, Schwartz still expects 2021 to usher in a slow recovery. Even so, Mission Fed has not laid off or furloughed any employees during the pandemic and doesn’t expect to.
“I am not a particularly soft and fuzzy, empathic person,” she said. “But I recognize how important employees are to our success and how important their engagement is to our success.”
