FCCS News & Insights

Employee Engagement Success at Southern AgCredit

The familiar adage that you can’t improve what you don’t measure holds true for employee engagement as in many facets of business. Southern AgCredit was recently reminded of this to its satisfaction after participating in both the 2023 and 2024 Farm Credit System Employee Engagement Surveys managed by FCCS.

In addition to its own confidential results, Southern AgCredit and other participating associations received a report covering the overall System results, which they can use as a relevant benchmark for their own results.

“We’ve done employee engagement surveys in the past, but I was curious as to how we’d perform compared to the rest of Farm Credit and to identify a baseline for ourselves moving forward,” says Phillip Morgan, Southern AgCredit’s CEO.

Southern AgCredit’s 2023 employee engagement survey results were laudable, with an “excellent” Net Promoter Score of 67 and high scores across the ten themes covered in the survey. Two areas that scored 4.0 out of 5 – the lowest scores received – were identified for improvement.

“Our engagement is strong across the board, but we always want to be doing better. The value in knowing where we’re weakest is that we can then take steps to fix the problem,” says Phillip.

Communication is always a challenge, both in determining how, how much and to whom information is communicated. Employees always want more, and Southern AgCredit has increased its transparency as a result, sharing with all employees the same financial information and other metrics that are shared with the board of directors. Weekly calls with managers are used to review the information in detail, as well as any other topics or changes that need to be communicated through the chain of command.

“We foster an ownership culture, and I know if I want our employees to feel the same ownership of our success as I do, they need to have the same information,” says Phillip.

Addressing the desire for additional professional development opportunities, Southern AgCredit implemented a company-wide training program acknowledging areas identified by its employees via personal performance assessments. The program delivers training focused on individual teams and leans on in-house training and exposure to senior leaders. Half- or all-day events incorporate social activities to build team camaraderie as well as skill leveling.

The results of the 2024 Farm Credit System Employee Engagement Survey proved the effectiveness of these initiatives: while Communication remained flat at 4.0 (which remains higher than the overall System rating), the Growth and Development score increased by 5% to 4.2. Moreover, Southern AgCredit’s already excellent Net Promoter score increased four points to 71.

“Our employees have responded really well to the changes and there’s a notable uptick in morale,” says Phillip. “More, we’re seeing the impact in our year-over-year financial results as we’re having one of our best years ever in 2024.”

After this year’s survey results were delivered, FCCS’ Angie Coleman provided Phillip and Alicia Ledbetter, Southern AgCredit’s Human Resources Manager, with a detailed walk-through of their results in comparison to Farm Credit overall. At Phillip’s request, Angie delivered the same presentation to the cooperative’s board of directors, and to the entire employee base.

The 2024 survey included additional questions related to employee burnout, a growing concern since the pandemic, and Southern AgCredit was surprised by the results: not that there was burnout in the organization, but who was feeling it.

“We know how hard our leaders work, so we expected to see survey results indicating burnout among that employee group,” says Alicia. “What we found, though, was burnout across employee groups throughout the organization.”

With this knowledge in hand, the cooperative will be taking steps to alleviate the pressures leading to burnout, starting with the simple step of asking their leaders to model work-life balance, including taking time away from work. The organization is also looking to further expand its transparent communication to include highlighting the organization’s industry and community involvement to employees.

“Our employees appreciate the opportunity to share what they think about our organization through this engagement survey, and they appreciate seeing that we’re proactively taking steps in response to their input,” says Phillip.

For more information about employee engagement and to join the 2025 Farm Credit System Employee Engagement Survey, contact Angie Coleman, Organizational Development Consultant, at 303.887.3791 or via email.