While many local companies scrambled to devise work-from-home-protocols earlier this year as the coronavirus pandemic gripped the nation, employees at Assurance Holdings didn’t skip a beat.
Assurance, a Marsh & McLennan Agency company and a full-service insurance brokerage, already had a two-day-a-week work-from-home arrangement in place. Managers simply boosted it to five days a week.
“We flipped to all of our employees working from home like a light switch,” said Jackie Gould, the company’s chief operating officer. “In some cases, we have been able to capitalize on some of our competitors that haven’t had that same seamless ability.”
Assurance is ranked No. 1 among midsize companies in the Tribune’s list of Top Workplaces, as measured by the consultancy Energage in Exton, Pennsylvania.
The company closed both its Schaumburg and Chicago offices March 18 and reopened them midsummer. Assurance recently extended its 100% work-from-home option through June 2021.
The extension was designed to reduce stress on employees with young children.
“As working parents, extending the work-from-home option really took the weight off our shoulders,” said Jessie Ron, a business process specialist who has been working entirely from home since March.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/ZOCG7MMVUZAMTH7BYZFZADP3WI.jpg)
Ron has two school-age children, a daughter in fifth grade and a son in second grade. The shift to working at home full-time was a “smooth and easy transition” from her previous schedule of two days a week at home and three days in the Schaumburg office.
The company also guaranteed it would not furlough or lay off workers during the COVID-19 crisis. “We trust our people,” said President Liz Smith. “Their jobs are getting done,” and “employee engagement scores are the highest they’ve ever been.”
For employees like Andrew Hesse, the company’s culture and its commitment to a work-family balance were draws long before the coronavirus pandemic.
A professional cello player by trade, Hesse said his long-term priorities changed after his second son, now 4 years old, was born. He joined Assurance as a newcomer to the industry in 2016, and compares the work environment with an orchestra, where everyone plays a part.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/SMTYCVZH55CTPA7PNMCYDQ5EXI.jpg)
He’s now an Assurance account manager, and the flexibility offered by the company has allowed him to keep his connections to music, occasionally subbing at the Lyric Opera.
Other niceties the company offers include a paid day off on birthdays, a paid day off to do volunteer work at a charity of their choosing and personal thank-you notes sent for jobs well done.
The annual employee appreciation day celebration at summer’s end was virtual this year, but featured a live performance by John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/DNOXOTBDXVDG5CL2PP5LTXXYGY.jpg)
Insurance, with its staid reputation, “is not an industry that people are running to,” Smith said, so Assurance tries to create a culture that attracts the best in the industry. “We want to create something different," she said.
Assurance’s push to attract talent included the 2014 opening an amenity-filled office in the West Loop near the Ogilvie Transportation Center to attract younger, urban-based workers.
As COO, Gould’s responsibilities at Assurance include human resources, operations, the client services platform and company culture. “It’s more about fostering a culture than it is about creating one,” she said.
Assurance had about 65 employees when Gould joined the company 25 years ago, and now employs about 535. What used to be more casual and friendly now needs to be more structured, she said. Also, employee needs change over time.
“One thing I learned about being a best place to work is that it’s really hard work for the leaders of the organization," Gould said. "You really have to listen, and meet very high expectations. Winning awards is awesome, but what really empowers us is information from employee surveys.”
Assurance does short “pulse checks,” or internal surveys, twice a year and external surveys about seven times a year. “We try to make it worth our employees' while. They do see changes that happen because of what they say in their surveys," Gould said.
Alexis Awe, a senior account manager, has worked at Assurance for eight years, joining after college with a job on the administrative team in the Schaumburg office. New to the insurance industry when she started, she has taken classes that Assurance has paid for. “It’s a huge benefit to be able to develop my career on their dime," Awe said.
Her job is now based in the West Loop office, and she returned there part-time in June when it reopened.
Working Lunch
Assurance also has a “High-five” recognition program that allows employees to reward each other with points for jobs well done. The points are collected and can be redeemed for products, gift cards or monetary charitable donations.
Hesse said he recently accumulated enough points to get a watch to track his daily steps, something he used during a recent competition. Teams that averaged 225,000 steps per person during September earned wellness points that translated into dollar awards.
Hesse also participated in a call with some 30 of Assurance’s working parents and company managers to discuss how to make their children’s transition to e-learning easier. The call followed a survey of 225 employees that preceded the decision to extend the work-from-home option.
Employee surveys are both “the most rewarding and unrewarding part of my job,” Gould said. "Every comment that says we missed the mark or dropped the ball is personally painful to me … but you also hear from employees about how appreciative they are of flexibility and support during this time. You can’t ask for a better reward than that.”
Suzanne Cosgrove is a freelance writer.
Click to read more Top Workplaces coverage.