One in two U.S. employees have left a job to get away from a manager. Managers also drive 70% of team engagement.

Read those two numbers together. Then ask yourself why so many articles, HR decks, and well-funded coaching platforms are arguing that career development should be taken out of managers' hands and outsourced to outside experts.

In episode 8 of The KEY to Your Next Step, Andrew Lederer pushes back.

Drawing on 15 years as VP of Learning and Development at a community bank, over 20 years teaching at the community college level, and recent research from Gallup, EdAssist, and Crowe, Andrew makes the case that the manager is not the obstacle. The manager is the engine.

Gallup has since released the 2026 State of the Global Workplace Report. The core findings in this episode are reinforced, not changed. Manager engagement has declined further since recording.

This episode covers:

• Why "let manager manage" is the wrong fix
• Where the data agrees that managers are undertrained, and what to do about it
• What the entire conversation about career development is missing
• A five-minute habit that does more than any annual review
• Direct asks for HR, for managers, and for employees who are not waiting

Whether you are building a development program, leading a team, or sitting in a job wondering if anyone notices, this one is for you.

SHOW NOTES

Article referenced: "Let Managers Manage: It's Time to Rethink Career Development with Education Benefits," EdAssist by Bright Horizons.

Research and data cited in this episode:

• Gallup 2025 State of the Global Workplace Report (manager engagement variance, manager training rates, coaching ROI)
• LinkedIn 2024 Workforce Confidence Survey (7 in 10 workers would leave for a bad manager)
• Crowe 2023 Bank Compensation and Benefits Survey (career development as top driver of bank turnover)
• Mercer 2025 Workforce Turnover Survey (financial services turnover trends)
• EdAssist by Bright Horizons (75% of managers want to support development; less than half have resources)

The Vault, Episode 1: The Vault

The first installment of a six-part true-crime series from The KEY to Your Next Step. In July 1969, a twenty-year-old vault teller at Society National Bank in Cleveland walked out of his job with $215,000 in a paper bag. His name was Theodore Conrad. The bank did not discover the loss until Monday. By then, he was gone. He would not be found for fifty-two years.

In this opening episode, Andrew Lederer goes back to his own first week working in a community bank branch, in his own cash drawer with a coworker named Jessica, and uses what he learned that week to set up the three ideas that hold the entire series together: trust, verification, and survival. With Linda Bridges, recently retired Vice President, Physical Security Officer and Internal Audit at a community bank, on what dual control actually looks like inside a community bank.

Listener Note

This is a true crime series. There's no graphic content. The story includes a real theft, a real fugitive, and real people who spent decades on the case. New episodes drop on the 15th of every month, October 2027 through March 2028.

Three Takeaways

1. Community banking is built on trust.
2. Trust without verification is fragile.
3. The procedures are how the trust survives.

Key Facts Referenced

• Theodore Conrad, age 20, walked out of the cash vault at Society National Bank in Cleveland, Ohio on Friday, July 11, 1969, with $215,000 in cash.
• The loss was not discovered until Monday, July 14, 1969.
• $215,000 in 1969 dollars is approximately $1.9 million today.
• Conrad was indicted by a federal grand jury in September 1969 on charges of embezzlement and making false entries in bank records.
• Source for the "All-American boy" description: US Marshals Service summary report, as cited in public reporting following the case's resolution in November 2021.

One Small Thing You Can Do Today

If you work in a branch or any operations role, find one procedure you don't love. Ask someone with more tenure than you to tell you the story of why it exists. Most procedures have a story behind them. The ones that don't, are worth asking about too.

CFTEA Courses To Explore

• ABA Principles of Banking
• CFTEA Fraud Foundations
• Calming Upset Customers (for the customer-awareness piece of this episode)

Visit cftea.org. Find a course that fits your role, and take the first step.

Next Episode

Episode 2: The Disappearance. Drops November 15, 2027. By Monday morning, the FBI was at the bank. A federal warrant was issued. And Theodore Conrad had a two-day head start. We follow him from Cleveland to where he ended up. And we ask what that head start actually meant for the people he left behind.

Most people don't need another goal. They need something that actually fits into their life. Tammy has spent 23 years at CFTEA watching adults try to learn while working full time, raising kids, and taking care of aging parents, and she knows the difference between a course someone signed up for and the one they actually needed. In this conversation we get into what "flexible" really means, why self-paced and guided learning aren't the same thing, and what happens behind the screen after you hit submit on an enrollment form. She also explains why she sometimes tells an organization that we don't want their money right now. If you've been putting off the next course because the timing never seems right, this one is for you.

Visit cftea.org to find a course that fits your role and take the first step.

CFTEA COURSES MENTIONED

• Principles of Banking — the three credit foundation. If a diploma is the goal, this is usually where to start.
• Banking Today — a shorter introduction to how banks operate and where your role fits.
• Modern Supervisor Certificate — ten short courses. Take the whole program, or take it in parts as your schedule allows.
• Introduction to Analyzing Financial Statements — balance sheet, income statement, cash flow, and how to read them.
• Money and Banking — heavy on economic formulas. Tammy's standing offer: send her the quiz set before you submit it.

Accountability at work isn't about punishment. It's the career skill nobody teaches. In this episode, Andrew talks with Jessica Bollotta, Corporate Project Manager at Achieva Credit Union and longtime CFTEA instructor, about what it actually takes to do your job well AND hold others accountable when they don't do theirs, without making enemies.

Fresh data from Gallup's 2026 State of the Global Workplace report frames why this skill matters more right now than at any point in the last five years. Jessica offers the reframe most people never get: accountability isn't the end of a rope, it's the beginning of trust. If you've ever felt stuck between covering for a coworker and calling out the pattern, this one is for you.

Verified references● Gallup 2026 State of the Global Workplace report:global employee engagement at 20%, manager engagement at 22% (down from 27% in 2025), total productivity cost of low engagement at approximately $10 trillion globally in 2025, equal to roughly 9% of global GDP.

● Gallup 2025 State of the Global Workplace report: the2024 disengagement cost of $438 billion, engagement peaked at 23% in 2022-2023 before beginning the current decline.

● Gallup Q2 2025 U.S. engagement measurement: only 47% of employees strongly agree they know what is expected of them at work. Down from approximately 55% pre-pandemic. Cross-generational; applies to entire workforce.

● PMI 2024 Pulse of the Profession: organizations withformal accountability frameworks report 72% of projects meeting original scope and timeline; those without struggle with delays in 63% of projects.

● American Psychological Association Work in America 2024 report: psychological safety and accountability are complementary, not opposed. Safety enables the honest feedback that accountability requires.

● PwC 2024 Trust Survey: 22% of employees say they haveleft a company because of trust issues; 61% report that a perceived lack of trust from leadership affects their ability to do their jobs well.

● Toxic workplace cost estimate: U.S. employers lostroughly $223 billion over five years due to toxic workplace culture (SHRM, cited in workplace research 2024-2025).

Ever feel like you’re doing all the “right” things… and still falling behind?

Wake up earlier. Do more. Set bigger goals. Stay busy.
It all sounds great… until it doesn’t.

In this episode, Andrew Lederer breaks down five common productivity myths that look good on paper but often work against you in real life. From the pressure of the 5am routine to chasing big goals that burn out fast, this conversation cuts through the noise and gets back to what actually works.

Backed by research and real experience, you’ll hear why:

• Your wake-up time doesn’t determine your success
• Copying successful people rarely works the way you think
• Big goals can sometimes hold you back
• Visualization alone can reduce motivation
• Staying busy isn’t the same as moving forward

This isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing what works for you.

If you’re ready for a more grounded approach to productivity, and want to build habits that actually stick, this episode will meet you where you are.

🎯 Plus, learn how CFTEA’s Productive Work Habits course helps you build real skills that carry into your day-to-day work, not just a curated version of success.

Listen in, share it with someone who needs it, and take the next step forward, one decision at a time.

Eighty-six percent of new hires decide how long they will stay with a company within their first six months. Not their first six years. Six months. In this special conversation dropped in the middle of fall onboarding season, Andrew sits down with Jessi Jaquish of Union Bank of Vermont and New Hampshire, a CFTEA board member and the head of a two-person training department, about starting with no map, the one person who changed everything, and what it means to build the training you wish you'd had. They talk about career cushioning, why it goes in two directions, and what fellow employees and managers can do this week for somebody quietly deciding whether to stay. This one goes gently and lands somewhere honest.

1. The map you don't have. Nobody walks in fully formed. Staying is often a decision you make before anybody else believes you should. And it usually isn't made alone.
2. The person who hands you one. Careers turn on somebody who quietly decided to invest before you'd earned it. That person is sometimes a manager. Often a peer. Being that person for somebody else, once you know the difference it made, is the work.
3. The map you build. The people who didn't have a training program are often the ones who end up building one. That isn't an accident. That's the shape leadership takes in a community bank.

KEY DATA POINTS REFERENCED

• Enboarder 2025 HR Leader Survey: 86% of new hires decide how long they will stay with a company within their first six months, and 19.5% of HR leaders name lack of connection with team or culture as the second most common reason new hires leave early.
• SHRM turnover data: 20% of turnover happens within the first 45 days of employment.
• Robert Walters survey (cited by Workable, 2024): 68% of American workers are engaging in career cushioning.
• Fortune (November 2022) and Forbes (May 2026): coverage of the career cushioning trend and its shift from a fringe behavior to a mainstream coping strategy.

One Small Thing You Can Do Today

Think of one person on your team who is in their first ninety days. Not the person who's already thriving. The quieter one. The one who might be counting the polite ways to step away. Text them. Ask how you can support them. Give them one thing this week they can succeed at.

• Foundations in Banking Certificate: The 2026 anchor offer for people new to banking or new to a role, and the natural entry point for anybody in their first ninety days.
• ABA Principles of Banking: The foundation course that opens the door for people coming into banking from outside the industry.
• Frontline Fundamentals: A free transfer credit offering for community banks and credit unions onboarding new frontline employees this fall.
• Engaging Adult Learners: For the person tasked with training new hires and building the guides that didn't exist before.

Guest Information

Jessi Jaquish is a member of the CFTEA Board of Directors and works at Union Bank of Vermont and New Hampshire, where she leads a two-person training department serving the bank's employees across Vermont and New Hampshire. Her onboarding materials, including three separate guides of over two hundred pages each, a three-week new-hire plan, and a three-day orientation, are used across the institution. Jessi started her banking career as a Float Teller.

Visit cftea.org to find a course that fits your role and take the first step.

What makes professional development truly worth it?

In a world filled with nonstop webinar invites and training emails, it can be difficult to separate cost from real value. In this episode of The KEY to Your Next Step, CFTEA Executive Director Andrew Lederer explores an important question facing employees, managers, community banks, credit unions, and organizations everywhere:

Is learning from CFTEA worth the investment?

This conversation goes beyond pricing and digs into what meaningful workplace learning actually looks like. Andrew discusses the balance of cost vs. value and why support from employers matters more than many people realize.

Using real student stories from community banks and credit unions, this episode explores:

• Cost vs. value in professional development
• Employee training fatigue and learning overload
• Why affordable education does not mean lower quality
• How community banks and credit unions support workforce growth
• The importance of flexibility, mentorship, and practical learning
• Why confidence changes careers and supports value
• How organizations build stronger teams through education

Whether you are exploring banking education, leadership skills, workplace learning, career development, or professional certifications, this episode offers a thoughtful and practical conversation about what truly helps people grow.

Because the true value of education is not simply what it costs. It is what it helps people become.

Resources

3 Ways to Boost Retention Through Professional Development (Harvard Business Review)

You've bookmarked the course. You've thought about the certification. You've watched a colleague get sent to a conference you would have killed to attend. And the conversation with your manager... still hasn't happened.

In this episodeof The KEY to Your Next Step, Andrew Lederer goes into the ask most professionals never make, and the one their managers are actually hoping they'll bring.

This isn't a "just ask for what you want" pep talk. Andrew tells the story from a manufacturing plant where he heard no for years, and from the other side of the desk as a VP of Learning and Development inside a community bank. He brings inthe 2023 Crowe Bank Compensation and Benefits Survey finding that lack of career development is now the number one reason employees leave banking jobs, ahead of pay. He gives you three ways to reframe the ask so your manager hears it as a return, not an expense. And he goes into the harder truth nobody else covers: what to do when you ask the right way and still get a no.

Whether you're early in your career or deep in the middle of it, this one is for the person who's been waiting longer than they should have been.

**Key topics in this episode:**

- Why the "tap on the shoulder" you've been waiting for rarely comes

- The manufacturing plant story that taught Andrew the no wasn't always about him

- The 2023 Crowe Bank Compensation and Benefits Survey on career development and turnover

- The LinkedIn finding that 94% of employees would stay longer for development

- Three ways to frame an ask your manager will hear as a return

- How to acknowledge cost out loud and position yourself like a leader

- The difference between a budget no and a culture no, and why it matters

- The short email that makes your next yes ten times easier

- The role-read every professional needs to develop about their own environment

**Referenced in this episode:**

- 2023 Crowe Bank Compensation and Benefits Survey, Crowe LLP

- LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report

- CFTEA courses, certificates, and college-aligned diplomas (cftea.org)

**Connect with CFTEA:** cftea.org

**Follow CFTEA on LinkedIn** for upcoming courses, programs, and resources for financial services professionals.