This past year was a difficult one, yet despite the lows we were inspired by the way that Americans rose to the challenge and supported each other.
We’re grateful to our clients who worked tirelessly through the pandemic saving small businesses and keeping people employed through their work with PPP loans, keeping families afloat with emergency loans, guiding many newly remote workers through the process of buying their first home to get the space they needed, and maintaining their high standard of service while complying with safety guidelines.
Even in the worst circumstances, credit unions and community banks demonstrated flexibility and resiliency in delivering on their mission. And despite all of this, they remained forward-thinking and adjusted their long-term strategies for a post-pandemic world.
This drive to innovate never slowed down, and it was a pleasure working with our clients on exciting new branch and headquarters projects. We’re also proud to show off a few completed projects this year, including branches for Fibre Federal Credit Union, NIH Federal Credit Union, Red Canoe Credit Union, and CBC Federal Credit Union.
We were also inspired to invest in new research, diving deep into the unique ways that workplaces impact the credit union industry's recruiting, retention, productivity, and overall wellbeing of staff in our whitepaper A Study of Credit Union Workplaces and the Future of Work. We also hosted a conversation with Erik Anderson, Microsoft’s Director of Workplace Intelligence, who shared three major takeaways from Microsoft’s transition to remote work in response to the pandemic along with recommendations for credit unions to achieve similar success.
We’re looking forward to seeing what 2021 has in store. Consumers are optimistic with 74% of Americans believing they will be better off in 2021 than 2020, yet many are in survival mode and need support from their communities and financial institutions. It’s going to be a challenging year, but we’re grateful for the opportunity to work with credit unions and community banks and help them deliver on their mission of supporting our communities.