Servus Young Leaders Network… Every Day We Shufflin’

I do not like to sit still.

That is no different on how I lead the Servus Young Leaders Network.

While I do appreciate how far we have come in such a short period of time and all that we have accomplished, I always have my eyes to the future. The past few months we have continued providing opportunities and value to the young leaders of Servus Credit Union.

For our Online Site we have added:

• SYLN Executive Alumni Page – Each year when Executive Committee members complete their term on the SYLN Executive Committee, they will be forever recognized on our SYLN Executive Alumni page for their contribution to our group and are available as a source for mentoring new committee members. 
• SYLN Award Winners Page – This page allows us to recognize those that have won various credit union young leader awards during the year, as well as attaching links to those various programs they participated in. Links currently include information on the SYLN National Scholarship Program, WYCUP, CUES Next Top Credit Union Executive Competition, and The Cooperative Trust’s Collider. This allows our young leaders to be aware of what else is out there in the Credit Union World. (P.S. Did you notice that each external award program was won a member of the Servus Young Leaders Network??? Just sayin’.)
• SYLN Regional Group Pages – As you know, Servus Credit Union is a province wide credit union with 100+ locations located throughout Alberta. Regional (Lloydminster, Edmonton, and Red Deer) young leader groups have been forming within Servus to allow for young leader involvement within their communities. The executive committee completed Regional Group Guidelines to assist the groups as they are being formed. We have also allocated some of our budget to the Regional Groups for special events such as lunch and learns, or supporting community events. Each region is provided with a mentor from the executive committee that will support them in their journey. The mentors will also share with the executive committee what great events are being completed in the region. I love the Regional Groups as they will bring greater awareness for the SYLN, but I also see new leaders developing who will soon move into executive positions within the Network.
• Corporate Library Page – Servus Credit Union has a humungous library stacked full of great books. All employees have the ability to borrow books on leadership, management, team building, member service, etc. to assist in their development however; we didn’t feel many of our staff actually knew about it. So we added a page. It includes a spreadsheet showing all the books in stock, as well as instructions on how to sign out, and whom to contact. 
• Drive for 500 Campaign – As a way to bring additional awareness of the Servus Young Leaders Network to Servus, we have implemented the Drive for 500 campaign. Our goal is to reach 500 members (and members of the online network can be of any age) by June 30th. As an added incentive, those that invite new members to the network (with memberships open) will be eligible for prizes when we hit 400, 425, 450, 475, and 500 new members.
• Leadership Group – I opened up a leadership group within the network and have been providing a new leadership blog every two or three days. For the most part, I use blogs from Harvard Business Review and Eric Jacobson. Lots of great reads!

I met with our senior manager, strategic staffing, to begin the process of tracking those young leaders who have participated in our major programs including executive committee members, the annual national scholarship winner, and the 35 under 35 Leadership Retreat participants. For now, it is likely too early to gage the true retention the network is providing to Servus, however, we will monitor participants to track their career progression on an annual basis. We will also compare these results to what the Servus average is for non-SYLN participants, as well as the industry average. For the 2011 year, only 1 out of 45 participants from programs stated above have left Servus.

By chance, I happened to be assisting our learning and development department within Human Resources with their on-boarding PowerPoint presentation. I took this opportunity to see if we could add 4 or 5 slides into the presentation to give new employees a brief explanation of what the Servus Young Leaders Network is, what we do, and a contact for additional information. They agreed, so now each new employee, across all regions, will be introduced to the Servus Young Leaders Network within days of beginning their Credit Union career.

And finally, due to an upcoming banking conversion coming for the Lloydminster region in October, we will be moving our 2nd Annual 35 Under 35 Leadership Retreat from September to June 4th and 5th. Our first point of business is providing our young leaders with an opportunity to recommend what they would like to see presented at the retreat. We have provided them with a survey to select their top 3 answers. With that, I would ask that you also complete the Servus Young Leaders Network 35 Under 35 Leadership Retreat Topic Survey (NTCUE Edition). What is something that would interest you?

So yeah…..we’ve been busy.
 
I would like to end with a common question that I have been getting a lot lately.

“What are you going to do when you are not a “young” leader anymore?”

Simple…..join LMFAO.

Everyday I’m shufflin’………

Devin Selte