How to cultivate your subject matter experts (SMEs)

It takes a team to run and grow your credit union.  Does your team have unique talents and expertise that contributes to the credit union's overall success?  Do you truly have Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) or do you have people in their roles that do their jobs because it has, “always been done that way?”  

When met with new challenges your team must have the drive to learn and continue growing their expertise. 

How do you inspire your team to be SMEs that will not only allow you to better serve your members? How do you encourage them to continue personal growth and driven to find better ways to improve efficiency and member satisfaction? How do you cultivate peer influencers and managers? 

EPL is a company that is committed to growing our staff to become SMEs and is also committed to working with credit unions to help their staff become SMEs. So, how can EPL and credit unions work together to make sure your staff knows how to use your core data system most effectively and have SMEs throughout your organization?

• Help your staff build their credentials to become SMEs: This can be done through internal and external education, through ongoing experiences and solving problems
• Ensure key people attend training sessions: Remember, no constructive question is unreasonable. Make sure staff understands what is being presented and encourage discussion.  Share information in the training session about how new processes will benefit the credit union.  Have the team communicate internally what they learn, ask them what they learned and how it will benefit your credit union?
• Network with other credit unions (like with our e3Community): EPL has created a networking forum to allow credit unions to discuss, ask and respond to best practices and challenges. 
• Encourage staff to be ambassadors for their area: Allow them to be influencers on processes that are established.  Consider having processes reviewed by your credit union partners to be sure they are optimizing system functionality.
• Have your SMEs conduct training: When your SME is the team trainer in specific areas, they tend to continue improving their knowledge. Have them record their training session to improve their own delivery and to keep an electronic resource available for future staff or to share with other credit unions
• Your team will respond to praise: Recognize SMEs internally to staff and managers.  You can also acknowledge them externally in credit union publications and board communications.  Finally, consider recognizing them as experts in industry networking forums. Soon other credit unions will be seeking out your SMEs for good ideas advice for better execution.

Cultivation of SMEs helps to grow your team professionally, motivates and retains your best people and provides a resource for other credit unions to gain key ideas to help their credit unions to grow as well.

EPL Staff

EPL, Inc.