Business View Magazine March 2023

159 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 3 VISION CREDI T UNION Employees who volunteer in the communities are eligible for variable pay and are encouraged to take time off to support local charitable causes, often without the need to use up vacation time. Vision Credit Union’s management has established relationships for financial and volunteer support for food banks throughout Alberta. Vision’s Helping Hands Grant was instituted this year to provide non-profits with an injection of funds for nonprofits needing to pay for capital projects. This year there were 105 applications submitted by the January deadline for an estimated $184,000 available in funds that do not require a repayment. That program will continue in 2024 and beyond, and the $184,000 in funds will be distributed later this year. “It can be hard for a non-profit to raise money in a small, rural community, so we’re just trying to make it a little easier,” Hautzinger says. That’s another common theme with Vision – encouraging employees to have a strong work/ life balance. When COVID first became a major concern, all employees were told they would be paid their entire salary throughout 2020 even with shutdowns, and that employees who didn’t feel safe could take time off without stopping their paycheques. Practically all employees were working their full schedules within the first week, although many were able to work remotely. All employees also received more than two full weeks off for COVID or other illnesses, so they could recover without having to use the time off without infecting co-workers. Nearly eight-in-10 employees and almost half of the executive team are women, which is another area of focus, Hautzinger says. There are challenges to the rising interest rate environment that Canadians face, but there are advantages, too. The Profit Shares co-op arrangement for example will offer higher returns. Vision’s executive team prepared for this by stress testing its systems and scenarios before and in the early days of the COVID pandemic, before interest rates rose. “We’re trying to get ahead of the curve and really educate and prepare our members,” Hautzinger says. Vision Credit Union values its branches and the in-person service it can provide but recognizes the importance of investing in online banking technologies. The credit union has hired a brand-new position - VP of Digital Transformation - this year. Hautzinger says it wants to be a “fast follower of technology” at the rate and with the services members want. In essence, Vision seeks to use a digital net to cast which will pull more members into its branches, he adds. One way to do that is with the Future Farmers program, which offers incentives to members for succession planning and other activities, along with preferential rates for loans and lines of credit. It also offers a Breeder program for cattle producers, and has a department of commercial/agricultural specialists whose only role is to conduct business with members working in the agricultural field. Says Hautzinger, “We will come to them and do business at their farms because we know it can be tough for farmers to come to a branch in the middle of the day.”