PERSON OF THE WEEK: Churchill Mortgage has seen impressive growth during the past few years, as evidenced by the many announcements the company has made regarding new hires and branch openings. This growth is all the more remarkable considering that the mortgage market has been contracting during that time.
Staffing a growing mortgage company with people with the right skills and cultural “fit” is critical; candidate selection must be handled carefully. Then, proper training must follow. To learn more about how Churchill Mortgage goes about recruiting and training its new hires, as well as recruiting strategies lenders can use to improve operations and performance, MortgageOrb recently interviewed Grant McFarland, operations manager.
Q: When it comes to recruiting new employees, what traits should be top of mind for any branch or recruitment manager? Are there any specific attributes you look for?
McFarland: A key trait we look for in all our recruits is whether or not they will be a strong cultural fit within our organization. In our case, this means looking for individuals willing to establishing meaningful, honest relationships with borrowers and their team members. This way, it’s less about loan volume and production and more about how coachable they are, and whether or not they are willing and able to listen and learn from their peers.
Although it’s important to target recruits with business acumen and a clear understanding of the mortgage process, it’s easier to teach someone about the industry than it is to change their personality or approach to working with borrowers.
Q: Maintaining relationships is an important skill in the mortgage industry. Is this something that you take into consideration during the recruitment and hiring process?
McFarland: In our recruiting efforts, we always try to seek out potential employees who are focused on building long-term relationships with not only their borrowers, but realty partners and local businesses as well. We generally shy away from those recruits who are transactional in their approach to lending and instead seek out those who guide borrowers through the mortgage process, helping them make the best financial decision possible for their individual situation.
When we ask applicants about the relationships they have established thus far, it’s to ensure these are genuine connections and not just surface level, “on-paper,” associations.
Q: Once you’ve got the right employees, what are some ways you go about training and equipping them to not only work with borrowers, but co-workers and industry partners as well?
McFarland: We take a two-pronged approach when on-boarding new employees. First, we ensure employees are spreading the company message and ethos in every customer or partner interaction. Second, we ensure they understand that they are now a part of the Churchill team.
In our industry, there tends to be an unnecessary rift between sales and operations. The truth is we will all win and lose together, regardless of department or role. We work hard to push this concept and ensure that each employee understands they are working towards the company’s overall success, which in turn, benefits everyone.
Q: When it comes to motivating your employees, what do you find to be the most efficient and helpful way to jumpstart the process?
McFarland: If a company is recruiting A-plus employees, or those who have an intrinsic drive for success, they will always have a desire to improve. With that said, actively helping employees understand how to improve their work and skills is a natural motivator. It can also help to set clear goals and benchmarks for employees to strive towards.
For instance, we developed a pipeline that outlines specific deadlines for certain loan types – this eliminates confusion and ensures that everyone is on the same page as a team, which in turns alleviates burdensome stress.
Q: Shifting gears a bit, what role do you feel data and data analysis plays in improving employee performance and overall operations?
McFarland: Data on employee performance has proven invaluable when it comes to motivating staff and improving operations. We provide our teams with weekly metrics on how they executed on certain loans and projects. This gives them a clear picture of exactly where they stand in regards to their team members, where they are seeing the most success and what to improve upon. This helps motivate those hardworking employees who want to perform at their very best each day.
Q: What are some key metrics that you track to ensure your team is operating with optimal efficiency and engagement?
McFarland: There are a few different metrics we tend to keep a close eye on to ensure operations are running smoothly. One in particular is underwriting touches. We tend to strive for two touches or less, and while that is not always a possibility, we hold our processors accountable to that number.
Two other key performance indicators we track are our clear to close (CTC) rate and last day CTCs (or finalizing a CTC the day a closing disclosure needs to go out). We generally want to have our CTC complete seven days prior to closing, and even though last day CTC’s are a reality in our business, they can be incredibly burdensome on operations. For this reason, we try to ensure processors keep last day CTCs below 15% a month, which we consider a success relative to their volume.
