Collection Manager

Job Summary

The Collection Manager leads a highly performing Collection team which has principal responsibility for servicing Members with past due consumer, commercial, and residential loans. This role requires excellent people and risk management, communication, and problem-solving skills to drive performance. This role also requires a high degree of emotional intelligence, adaptability, analytical thinking, strategic and tactical planning, and the ability to successfully manage multiple responsibilities in a fast-paced, heavily member-focused and solutions-driven service environment.

About UFCU

Founded in 1936, UFCU has grown to serve Members across Texas and beyond.  At UFCU, we are more than just a financial institution, and our people are more than just employees. We are dedicated to our purpose of empowering our Members to achieve financial success and build brighter futures.

In pursuit of our aspiration that UFCU is loved by millions of Members and built to thrive for generations, we are guided by our values:

Purposefully Member-Obsessed

We are driven by a profound sense of empathy to deeply understand our Members’ needs and preferences, what brighter futures means to them, and the obstacles in their way. We act in our Members’ best interests, forever seeking to empower their financial success.

Possibilities Reimagined

We are inspired to courageously experiment, learn, and iterate in pursuit of positive impact for our Members, UFCU, and coworkers. We challenge assumptions, embrace diverse perspectives, and make use of data and insights.

Performance Excellence Rooted in Unwavering Integrity

We do the right thing, always. We champion teamwork, accountability, continuous improvement, and celebrate successful outcomes of others, fostering an inclusive environment of excellence and collaboration.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

The Collection Manager has principal responsibility for leading day-to-day operations of UFCU’s Collection Department, and reports to the Director of Collection. Responsibilities fall primarily into the following categories:

Staff Management

In partnership with the Director of Collection and UFCU leadership, the Collection Manager develops and implements strategies, tactics, processes, reports, and controls to  build a cohesive team with diversified experience and skill sets to meet evolving Member needs consistent with UFCU growth plans. This includes: :

•  Planning for and fulfilling hiring and staffing needs
•  Department goal setting
•  Performance management, including monthly and annual performance reviews
•  Employee development and training
•  Employee engagement and accountability
•  Employee incentive program planning, analysis, reporting, and management 

Collections Operations Management

In partnership with the Collection Director  and UFCU leadership, the Collection Manager develops and implements strategies, tactics, process, reports,  and controls for:

•  Collections strategy and tactics
•  Policy and procedures for collection operations
•  Collection technology, including the collection management database, telephone system, autodialer, payment systems asset recovery, and legal systems
•  Operations reporting, data analysis, and recommendations
•  Credit loss risk planning and achieving targeted goals
•  Process analysis and automation, including RPA and AI integration, to identify, implement, and capture operating efficiencies
•  Collateralized asset recovery and liquidation
•  Legal account processing and follow up
•  Charged off loan recovery
•  Compliance management
•  Member escalation and complaint review and resolution
•  Business continuity planning, documentation, and testing

Collections Department Functional Management

In partnership with the Collection Director and UFCU leadership, the Collection Manager develops and implements strategies, tactics, processes, reports, and controls for:

•  Expense forecasting, review, approval and management

•  Delinquency and loan loss forecasting and budgeting, supported by detailed analysis
•  Organizational structure optimization
•  Tools and technology review, planning, selection and management, including RPA and AI, to leverage technological and operational efficiencies for members and department and enterprise project participation and management
•  Loan portfolio risk management optimization, ensuring that actual risk aligns with UFCU-stated collection risk tolerances
•  Lending Risk Management, partnering with Loan Underwriting to pro-actively manage risk/reward strategies and execution
•  External (UFCU Executive) functional reporting, review, and analysis
•  Loan loss provision (CECL) management
•  Vendor review, selection and management

In addition to the responsibilities specifically outlined above, the Collection Manager must continually look to the future: how will we fulfill our mission next year? In five years? Keeping abreast of best practices across the spectrum of collections operations is required. The Collections Manager is expected to network with peers across the Credit Union and financial services landscape to ensure UFCU’s Collections operations delivers great Member service, risk mitigation delinquency remediation, and loss minimization as efficiently and effectively as possible, using the most cost-effective combination of human and technology resources. The Collection Manager is also responsible for ensuring appropriate communication and cooperation with other functional areas within UFCU. This entails developing and maintaining effective professional working relationships with superior, peer, and subordinate colleagues across the UFCU enterprise. The Collections Manager will interact most frequently with UFCU’s Lending, Finance, Legal, Retail, HR, Compliance, and Member Services teams.

REQUIRED COMPETENCIES:

Delivering Member Obsession

• Ensuring that the internal and/or external customer’s perspective is a driving force behind strategic priorities, business decisions, organizational processes, and individual activities; crafting and implementing service practices that meet Member and own organization’s needs; promoting and operationalizing customer service as a value.
• Puts themselves in the Member’s shoes—Through their team, actively seeks to understand member needs, expectations, and preferences to deliver efficient win-win solutions.
• Looks for friction points—Collaborates with the Collections team to identify and remove barriers and friction points for both Members and department employees.
• Makes it personalized and easy—Uses understanding of member needs to prioritize actions that will create personable, actionable member experiences whenever they need it and wherever they are.

Delivering Performance Excellence

• Ensuring others contribute to organization strategies by focusing them on the most critical priorities, measuring progress, and ensuring accountability against those metrics.
• Breaks work down—Determines action steps and milestones required to implement a specific business initiative.
• Creates accountability—Ensures that those responsible for implementing a strategic initiative have role clarity and accountability for required actions and that results follow.
• Brings others along—Helps people understand the reasons behind organizational initiatives and the value of assigned responsibilities for the individual, team, and organization.
• Follows Up– Is resolute in tracking ongoing progress against strategic objectives to ensure successful goal achievement, and pro-actively resolves challenges and reports any issues to leadership to avoid or mitigate surprises

Delivering Innovation

• Creating an environment (culture) that inspires people to generate novel solutions with measurable value for existing and potential customers (internal or external); encouraging experimentation with new ways to solve work problems and seize opportunities that result in unique and differentiated solutions.
• Inspires curiosity—Encourages others to ask probing and provocative questions to understand the assumptions underlying current practices before moving to problem solving. Displays strong sense of personal intellectual curiosity to further develop self and others.
• Challenges current thinking—Drives others to explore alternative ways to view and solve problems and achieve results; leverages technology to reduce manual processes while actively promoting automation, best practices, and enhanced analytics.
• Champions experimentation—Encourages others to test promising ideas and take risks with new approaches to our infrastructure, processes, and partnerships.

Delivering Empowered Leadership

• Using appropriate methods and a flexible interpersonal style to build, motivate, and guide a diversified, cohesive team to complete team goals. Fostering a work environment that encourages people to act with integrity and treat each other and their ideas with respect; creating and protecting a high-trust environment by setting an example, advocating for others in the face of challenges, removing barriers to trust, and rewarding others for demonstrating behaviors that cultivate trust. Identifying and leveraging opportunities to accelerate results and build capability by assigning tasks and decision-making responsibilities to individuals or teams with clear boundaries, expectations, support, and follow-up.
• Develops direction—Ensures that team purpose, goals, roles, responsibilities, and expectations are clear and understood.
• Builds team trust—Shares feelings, intentions, and rationale so that others understand personal positions and feel comfortable doing the same; admits mistakes; creates a safe environment for disclosure by asking for others’ thoughts and feelings, empathizing with their concerns, and rewarding them for sharing, while also ensuring strong organizational performance and goal achievement.
• Identifies opportunities to share responsibility—Actively seeks and allocates appropriate decision-making authority or task responsibility to appropriate individuals based on their abilities, availability, motivation, and development needs. Develops, recognizes and rewards individual and team performance.
• Informs the team—Shares relevant information with the team; reviews team results regularly and offers positive and developmental feedback.
• Supports the team—Builds others’ sense of task ownership and self-confidence by helping them generate ideas, make decisions, obtain resources, and overcome barriers; supports team decisions to upper management; celebrates team success.

EXPERIENCE:

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Finance, Data Analytics, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience. Relevant experience in collections, risk management, or data analysis may be considered in lieu of a formal degree.
• Minimum of five (5) years of experience in the financial services sector, with at least 2 years in a leadership or supervisory capacity. Credit Union or Banking experience is preferred.
• At least two (2) years of collections or sales experience in the financial services sector.
• At least intermediate level proficiency with Microsoft Excel with strong technology skills and aptitude
• Excellent interpersonal, communications, analytical and problem-solving skills are required.
• Demonstrated experience working cross-functionally with departments such as Risk, Legal, Member Service, and Technology to ensure cohesive collections strategies.
• Familiarity with collections management software, CRM systems, and other financial technology platforms.

Preferred Requirements

• Proven experience with digital collections strategies, including the use of automated collections tools, AI-driven systems, or similar technology.
• Proficiency in data analytics tools and predictive modeling software (e.g., Python, R, or SAS) to analyze borrower data and implement risk-based collections strategies.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit; use hands to finger, handle, or feel; reach with hands and arms; and talk or hear
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, and the ability to adjust focus
• The employee is frequently required to stand and walk
• Employee will make extensive use of the telephone requiring the ability to effectively and accurately explain complex information

WORK ENVIRONMENT:

The work environment characteristics described are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job

• This position may involve periodic stressful conditions and deadlines.
• May occasionally require an adjusted work schedule, overtime, and evening/weekend hours.
• Frequent computer use at a workstation up to two hours at a time.
•  The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet to moderate.

Nothing in this job description restricts management from changing any or all parts of the job description at any time.

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