Like the Silicon Valley startup scene with which it shares much of its DNA, today’s fintech space tends to be a high-turnover business, with skilled employees constantly testing the market for their talents.
So when a company like Promontory Interfinancial Network is able to boast of a sub-15% turnover rate and can hold up a roster full of employees who have been with the company for a decade or more, it’s worth asking how they do it.
According to CEO Mark Jacobsen, it’s simple — if not necessarily easy.
“Longevity is important to us,” he said. “We don’t expect to be the only stop on the train in someone’s career, but we would certainly appreciate a good chunk of their time, if not their entire career with us.”
When the company identifies an exceptional employee, he said, “We’ll go to the ends of the earth to keep her.”
In some cases, that means making accommodations for employees who can no longer remain near its inside-the-Beltway offices in northern Virginia. One of the company’s earliest hires, now a senior account representative, has worked for Promontory remotely for years, with stops in Texas, Washington State, and most recently, Denver.
While other companies might have shied away from having someone in such an important position working off-site, Jacobsen said it was a no-brainer for Promontory.
“She’s our most senior account representative and handles our most difficult accounts,” he said. “There’s no way we’re going to let someone like that go.”
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For some employees of the firm, which offers a range of products designed to help banks, including a reciprocal deposit-swapping service and network to buy and sell commercial and other loans, it means finding a way to help workers stay.
When marketing director Amy Manship was offered a promotion to her current position with the company, her husband had just accepted a new job in Alabama, and the family was getting ready to move. Her new position forced them to rethink their plans for the long-term, but her husband was already on the job, hundreds of miles away from Manship and their three school-age children.
It was then that Promontory’s “family-first” philosophy kicked in, Manship said.
“They really went out of the way” to reduce the stress of being a temporary single parent, Manship said, offering flexible work hours and the ability to do her new job from home when she needed to. “That really comes from the top,” she said.
To Jacobsen, offering employees radical flexibility makes perfect sense. “It goes to trust,” he said. “We expect trust, and we also trust the employee.” That’s why Promontory’s workforce is stacked with people like Manship, who have been on the job for more than ten years now.
“We couldn’t be more delighted with the way it’s turned out,” Jacobsen added.
