CUES 119: Credit Union Executive Pay Up Despite Economic Uncertainty-an Interview With Scott Hackworth, CPA, and Laura Lynch

Pay increases found in the CUES Executive Compensation Survey this year range from 3% to 7%, depending on the position. Scott Hackworth says in this episode of the CUES Podcast that these figures are significant considering how much uncertainty is present in the overall economy right now. 

Even though no one knows what’s going to happen next, “this urge or this need to maintain consistency, especially amongst the top executives, that need has really risen and become more prominent than ever,” explains Hackworth, president of Industry Insights Inc., CUES’ partner in doing both the CUES Executive Compensation Survey and CUES Employee Salary Survey. “And because of that, there’s the increase in compensation.”

Hackworth said that the pandemic has shown many employees and executives that working from home works for them, at least some of the time. He says credit unions that want to attract and keep top talent will need to consider flexible work in their offering compensation programs.

“Some of those pieces, the wellness packages, along with the overall compensation will win in the long run,” he says in the show. “The power of the employee has become larger than it has been in a really long time. And definitely (consider) the shakeup that happened, where anytime there’s change, there’s new thoughts, there’s new developments. And so certainly having the employee now feel empowered, and being able to say, “Hey, you know what, I’ve been working from home five days a week. I think I can still work from home three days a week and get, you know, I’ll be in the office, can we make that work? Can we do this flexibility?” And those are all parts of that discussion that were they would have been laughed at five years ago.”

CUES products and services manager, Laura Lynch, explains in the show how both CUES member and non-member credit unions can get access to customized compensation data.

“Our credit unions can go online to pull reports,” Lynch says. “It’s a nice tool that allows you to cut your data as you want it—so, choosing your own peer group, whether that be by asset by region, things like that. 

“Any credit union that is a CUES Unlimited+ member gets complimentary access to the executive compensation reports as well as the employee compensation report, so they can go to the CUES website to find that. 

“Anyone who’s not a CUES Unlimited+ member can purchase access. And they can also do that via our website. And those subscriptions that are purchased are good for 12 months, and the credit unions can run as many reports as they need throughout that year.”

The show also gets into:

Adding a new diversity, equity and inclusion executive position to the surveyHow the two surveys are conductedThe value of using data to help make compensation decisions

Links for this show

TranscriptThank you to our sponsors, CUES Supplier member Plansmith and CUESolutions provider SRMCUES Executive Compensation SurveyCUES Employee Salary SurveyCUES membership