Vestwell, which helps financial institutions administer workplace investing programs such as 401(k)s, keeps employees informed about its goals, involves people at all levels in decision-making and provides flexibility when employees need to take care of family matters. These are among the factors that made it one of the
Most members of Vestwell’s management team came from traditional financial services firms to create the company, which now has 103 employees.
“This is the company we wish we came from,” said Allison Brecher, general counsel at the New York-based Vestwell.
The efforts that helped land Vestwell at No. 3 in this year's rankings are in the areas of transparency, diversity, employee engagement in decisions and flexibility, including letting people bring their dogs to work.
On the transparency front, at the beginning of each year, the management team lays out key performance indicators, including those related to sales performance and product releases, and holds biweekly all-hands meetings to discuss progress toward these goals.
Executives also send out annual engagement surveys and midyear pulse surveys to get a sense of how the company can improve, and they take action based on the results. After surveys revealed that employees wanted more control over the culture of the company, they made sure that the existing committee making cultural, health and wellbeing decisions for the company was well represented with employees at all levels. Executives also dedicate one all-hands meeting each week to recognizing staff members for their good work, and implemented unconscious bias training where the team could discuss diversity and inclusion matters over lunch.
Vestwell has been making other strides to diversify its workforce. It plans to partner with tech-oriented organizations and events that focus on women and people of color, such as AfroTech and Women in Technology, at first to recruit directly by attending their conferences and later to gain advice on how to hire, train and include diverse candidates. The company will also launch its first official summer internship program this year that is specifically designed to bring in students from communities of color, with the intent of hiring at least two of these interns full-time.
“For many smaller startups or scale-ups, recruiting people of color or women is not on the agenda as they may be focused on a skillset or the salary line item,” said April Rudin, founder and president of The Rudin Group, a digital marketing company for financial services. “For [CEO] Aaron Schumm and Vestwell, it is part of their DNA and embedded in their success story, as we know that firms with diverse working groups are much more successful than those who are homogeneous.”
The company estimates that 30% to 40% of its employees are women, and almost 30% of its executive leadership team is female. It declined to disclose figures relating to ethnicity and race.
Vestwell also keeps the mood light with Slack channels where employees can share photos and stories about their hobbies and their pets. The company has moved offices several times over the years to accommodate its growing staff, and in previous spaces it allowed pet owners to bring their dogs to work on certain days of the week.
“Even for those who weren't the biggest fans of dogs, this was a way to lighten the mood,” said Brecher.
Now that employees are working remotely, a Slack channel called #pets_like_401k_plans has taken its place.
Importantly to many, employees can expect a family-friendly environment, with no questions asked if someone needs to block off time on their calendar to meet with their child’s teacher or transport their parents to a COVID-19 vaccine appointment.
“We’ve created an environment that all of us on the leadership team always wanted to have, a place where people can feel safe and talk about their families,” said Brecher. “At a large company that is not always the case.”
