How to Keep the People Helping People Focus Alive in a Digital World
In 2020, my company, PixelSpoke, decided to permanently move our company to an all-remote environment. That move was something I supported and even advocated for. In the years since, I’ve definitely enjoyed the benefits of working from home, including saving money on lunch, having more hours at home with my critters, and enjoying a quiet workspace. We’ve also hired and connected with incredible individuals, whom we probably would have never met if we had mandated a return to the office.
On the flip side, a larger chunk of my waking hours is now spent looking at the very laptop screen I'm using right now. I’ve had to be far more intentional about setting boundaries around screen time and work-life balance. I’ve also come to mourn what was lost in the move to being an all-remote company. I no longer enjoy a daily bicycle commute, during which I once watched the seasons change and felt the rain and wind on my face. This commute granted me the opportunity to explore different neighborhoods, feel more connected to my physical community, exercise regularly, and allow my mind transitional time before and after work to wander and process.
I also miss the conversations with my coworkers, about the mundane and the existential, while they made coffee, reheated leftovers, or prepared their daily salad that always included a fresh avocado. One of the things I’ve realized is that we also lost some of our ability to connect and collaborate in a meaningful way. There is something about always meeting via a screen that can prompt folks to show up differently, or potentially fray the edges of our connection to and understanding of each other. I’ve been asking a number of other company leaders who are in a similar situation how the “new normal” is working out for them. It turns out that everyone is feeling it too, and no one seems to have the answer.
Once a year, the team at PixelSpoke gathers for our company retreat. After another year on Zoom, we finally got to bring most of the team together this past February and connect at the coast in SW Washington. It was, as all of our annual retreats have been, fantastic. We cooked together, played games (hey, if you ever really want to inspire your coworkers' competitive spirits, play card games with them!), and sang songs, mostly off key.
We also had deep and sometimes tough conversations face to face, and talked about how we could keep moving forward. 2025 was a bumpy year for a lot of people and companies—including credit unions—and our company was no exception. The time we spent in person together was not only a gift, but as I realized in retrospect, critical to our team morale. It made me realize how much better it can be to move through complex situations when you are looking someone in the eye.
I came to a similar realization a few months back while going through a personal financial process with my credit union. I started the process using my phone, because I was honestly curious to see what the user experience would be like, and I wondered if I could complete the process entirely via mobile. I was able to make a fair bit of headway before I finally got stuck, and needed to talk to a “real human being.” And I’m so glad I did!
The member rep who assisted me went way beyond answering my questions to just help me complete what I’d set out to do. We got to know each other a bit, and they picked up on my now-fading Texas accent. It turned out we had some relatives living in similar areas, and went on to compare life in the South to the Pacific Northwest. We talked about our communities, what we had experienced, what we had learned, and how important it was to be present to continue to build them. In the midst of a complex and anxiety-inducing financial move, I had a smile on my face. When I left the branch, I felt supported, and just … good.
What started as a bit of a frustrating “transaction” turned into a real human connection. It’s easy to make a lot of assumptions about folks when you are behind a screen, or talking to a disembodied voice. The hot potato of AI definitely has its benefits—even and especially in the credit union space—but I think we can all agree that it’s just not the same.
So while technology has its place, navigating interpersonal dynamics and solving complex problems with coworkers or credit union members face-to-face can actually be more effective and strengthen the threads of humanness that connect us all. This is where credit unions shine, again and again.
On PixelSpoke’s Remarkable Credit Union podcast, we’ve talked to leaders at credit unions large and small that are still being highly intentional about cultivating in-person human connections. Express Credit Union’s Community Teller program, for instance, entails setting pop-up branches at community partner locations. Said Chief Business Officer Elizabeth Escobar, “We really value spending time at our partner locations because [we’re] staying true to [our] mission and continuing to serve those furthest from opportunity. Being in-person is what builds relationships, builds trust in community, and we’ve just swung so far to everything digital all the time, that gets lost.”
Meanwhile, Express CU’s much larger neighbor, BECU, remains committed to a trust-based philanthropy model that entails truly listening to each community it serves and surfacing needs through close and customized partnerships. This approach offers a quiet but steady engine of growth for the credit union that doesn’t hinge its hopes on flashy technological trends or transactional, product-driven marketing.
Across the country, while PenAir Credit Union is investing heavily in branches, it’s reimagining them not as transaction centers, but as "relationship anchors" and "help desks for complexity." Chief Experience Officer Derrick Aguilar put it this way:
People come into branches during life moments. Buying a home, navigating a setback, planning for the future. Sometimes if the digital channel doesn't work the way it's supposed to work, they're going to come into a branch or call the call center. Or when they simply just want somebody to walk them through something. Sometimes you just need a person to help you walk you through something or give you that level of confidence. So that part's important. Again, I see it as that help desk. The other component of that is that branches also make us real. So planting a flag in a community builds credibility. Even members who may never walk into a branch take comfort in knowing it's there if they ever need it. If something goes sideways, I know that I can go and I can talk to somebody.
I claim no magical formula for navigating the velocity or sometimes-isolating effects of technology, or even what the right balance is for a given situation. But here is a truth I have at this moment: The challenges we face as individuals, organizations, and as communities can be immense, and we absolutely need each other to figure it all out.
By simply acknowledging that, we shine a light on the interconnectedness that is sometimes blurred by a Zoom background, and reminds us why we are part of this movement in the first place.