Identify Savings Like Spokane City Credit Union

In early 2018, executive management of Spokane City Credit Union – with the support of the credit union’s advisory board – embarked on a project to update the facilities and replace aging systems.

Their plan was holistic and exhaustive: a complete remodel of the existing building, landscaping, heating & cooling systems, and outdoor irrigation. Two primary factors played a role in driving this decision: outdated facilities no longer suited the needs of daily operations and the high costs associated with energy, water, and waste.

In 2019, they reduced water use by 68%, saving nearly 560,000 gallons of water, and avoided paying a water bill as part of the Spokane Scape utility billing credit.

Saving the world means saving money:

• Employees typically represent the largest expense of most businesses
• Employees are the greatest asset and reducing employee-related expenses have far-reaching, negative impacts on business
• Streamlining operational processes, eliminating waste, and maximizing efficiency is the best first step in identify cost-savings and unleashing productivity and innovation

Employees are your biggest asset. And while they commonly account for your largest expense, focusing on employee-related expenses when you are trying to identify savings and reduce expenses isn’t the most effective approach. Reducing benefits, increasing workloads, and conducting layoffs have serious impacts to morale, company culture, and productivity. Public knowledge of these changes can have serious impacts to you brand. All of this exacerbates your problems.

There are better ways. Operational processes are frequently inefficient and full of waste. Defining, documenting, and improving processes is the best first step in identifying cost savings and reducing your overall expense. More efficient processes unleash productivity, reduce employee stress, give them more time to focus on further improvements and efficiencies, and help them improve their work-life balance. Which increases their satisfaction and loyalty.

Improved process efficiency also gives employees greater opportunities to innovate and increase customer value. With the increased capacity derived through improved productivity, businesses can reallocate employees to higher value-added tasks and unlock talent that is currently under-used because employees don’t have sufficient time to think beyond their daily work.

When looking for savings, it is easy to just cut employee expenses because it has the most immediate impact. But that short-term gain comes with a very high long-term risk.

Want to try a better way? We’ve got this.