RALEIGH, N.C. –Coastal Credit Union has completed what it is calling a “transformative renovation” of its headquarters to create a building designed to leverage a workforce that has become hybrid—a change it said has saved it the cost of a new building and taught some lessons other credit unions can learn from.

Coastal Credit Union said its now state-of-the-art environment has been designed to “foster flexibility, collaboration, and employee well-being.”

The improved workspace now features flexible workstations, “vibrant social spaces and cutting-edge technology” aimed at making staff more productive, according to the $5.7-billion Coastal CU, which has 620 employees, approximately 450 of whom are assigned to the renovated building.

“Prior to COVID-19, Coastal was quickly outgrowing our space and planned to build a new building,” President and CEO Tyler Grodi said in a statement. “The pandemic and ensuing shift to remote and hybrid work gave us the opportunity to reimagine our existing space. We built with flexible work and fostering collaboration becoming central to everything. In doing so, we’re confident we’ve created one of the best office spaces in the area.” 

Making it Easier  

Coastal said its new workspaces are designed to support hybrid and onsite employees while also making collaboration with remote employees easier. To do that, it said the new headquarters is designed around “activity-based work,” and the workspaces, technology and new practices are built to support a “mix of focused individual work, collaboration, learning, and socializing.”

The credit union said it is encouraging employees to  “move around the building and use the spaces and resources that best fit the tasks they need to complete.”

Spaces Can be Reserved

In the renovated headquarters, individual spaces include reservable or assigned workstations, private offices, focus rooms, and wellness rooms. Collaborative spaces include meeting rooms in a variety of sizes, huddle rooms, open collaboration areas, social hubs, and training rooms, Coastal CU added.

The 340,000-member credit union said the renovation was a two-and-a-half-year project that has now added “decades of new life” to the six-story, 135,000-square-foot building. 

Other New Features

New features and amenities include a two-story outdoor social and collaborative space, an onsite coffee bar, electric vehicle charging stations, and inclusive restrooms, Coastal CU reported.

The building also includes a new credit union branch for Coastal members, and the new Bill Smith Board Room, which is named in memory of Coastal’s longest-serving board member.

Additional Details, Insights & Advice

In response to questions from The CU Daily, Coastal Credit Union offered these responses, including some advice for other credit unions.

CU Daily: What is the schedule/requirement for employees who are hybrid workers? Do they have to be in the office certain days per week?

Coastal CU: Two onsite collaborative days per week are the expectation across the organization. Department leaders have a lot of flexibility in determining specifically when their teams need to be in the office, based on the work to be completed.

CU Daily: How does this work for managers in trying to coordinate remote workers?

Coastal CU: We have tech solutions to facilitate collaboration when some people are onsite and some are offsite. We use Webex for meetings and instant messaging, and all of our meeting rooms and devices are equipped to support hybrid meetings. Most employees are hybrid, and nearly all are either hybrid or onsite. If someone is truly 100% remote, we may still need to bring them onsite, but that’s infrequent.  

CU Daily: Other credit unions would certainly like to know: What has Coastal learned in this process? This must have evolved as the credit union sought the best model, so what did you find does notwork well?

Coastal CU: For us, the process was a constant evolution because we initially had plans to build a new HQ. The pandemic caused us to unexpectedly shift to hybrid, and our success there showed us we could get a lot more life out of our current space if we adapted it to hybrid. 

We never really came out of that, we just evolved from being in pandemic mode to being in renovation.  (We) don’t think anything didn’t work well, but the biggest lesson was definitely: you must be adaptable, both as a business and as an employee. That held true both for the renovation and the shift to being a flexible workplace.  

The CU Daily: Some of the nations’s biggest banks have called their workers back to the office, saying productivity/collaboration was suffering? Clearly, Coastal doesn’t agree. How do you ensure productivity gains and do you measure it?

Coastal CU: Our goals are very clear, easy to measure, and we review progress with all employees regularly. Individual performance plans should all tie back to those goals, and a manger and employee should know fairly quickly if they aren’t meeting goals. If someone isn’t performing, we don’t look at their location as being the primary problem, or the primary solution. 

We do see improvements in collaboration from being in person and encourage being onsite for collaborative work. That’s how the building is designed. However, collaboration isn’t 100% of anyone’s job. That’s where the flexibility comes in. Employees have a lot of options as to how and where they do their focused, individual work. 

The CU Daily: Did CCU look to any other organizations for any direction?

Coastal CU: We got a lot of good direction from our office furniture vendor, of all places. They have a consulting wing that offered up a lot of good change management best practices from other companies they had worked with, and we built our plan off of that.

The CU Daily: What advice would Coastal have for another credit union inspired by what you are doing?

Coastal CU: Change management and communication are the biggest components of a project like this. We provided updates to staff at least weekly and made all of the resources centralized and readily available, both for the renovation phases and the shift to flexible workplace.  

You also need your leaders to model the behavior you want to see. We didn’t just change the work environment, we changed how we use the space, and we needed to shift thinking from telling people what to do, to having them feel empowered to do what works best.

Employees need to know they have permission; you can’t just assume they know.