Industry sign banking louisiana presentation easy
good morning good morning and welcome i'm julia molar president and ceo of the business report this morning's virtual event kicks off today's louisiana business symposium it's the first of two events and on behalf of our sponsors fishman haygood mercedes-benz of baton rouge lwcc iberia bank and wafb we'd like to welcome you to the annual best places to work celebration we're honored that all of you would join us this morning for this special presentation we're certainly living in challenging and chaotic and interesting times but there's no doubt that as industries continue to be disrupted technology continues to change and competitive pressures increase on all of us there's one thing that's for sure and that is that people want to work for companies that make them feel valued a place where they're part of a team where they provide their their provided support and growth opportunities and most of all there's a positive work environment this year marks our seventh year of producing the best places to work it's also our seventh consecutive year of having increased participation throughout the capital region there were a lot of companies that didn't make the top 50 places to work but this morning you're going to find out who did the best places to work program is a collaborative project with two organizations one locally and one actually globally the first here locally is the greater baton rouge society of human resource management otherwise known as sherm and the best companies group a national firm that does this nationwide and even worldwide and at this time it's my pleasure to introduce the current president of sherm miss teresa jones teresa welcome thank you julio good morning i am teresa jones president of greater baton rouge society for human resource management also known as gbr sherm 2020 has brought an overwhelming number of challenges to the workplace and i'm proud and excited to be among those organizations today who have found ways to not only persevere when faced with adversity but to rise to the occasion as the premier hr organization in the area gbr sherm members benefit from networking with hr professionals and companies albeit virtually as of late local professional development opportunities and access to current best practices speaking of all of these benefits we're looking forward to our annual fall conference which is going virtual this year the two-day event will feature four tracks including diversity and inclusion legal leadership and culture and engagement anyone who registers during the month of september will receive a complimentary gbr sherm membership for the remainder of 2020. to find out more i invite you to visit our website gbrsherm.org a link to all of the exciting things going on with gbr sherm is in the chat for quick access on behalf of gbr sherm i would like to thank the greater baton rouge business report for allowing us to partner for today's event i would also like to congratulate all of today's best places to work nominees companies like those present today make greater baton rouge the workforce thrive thank you thank you teresa next up you're going to hear some interesting facts regarding companies in the capital region from the president of the national firm that runs the analysis and shares the data with all of us but first check out these two messages from our [Music] [Applause] sponsors hi i'm charles landry of the law firm fishman haygood 2020 has certainly been another year to test the resiliency of louisiana but i've lived and worked in louisiana long enough to know one simple fact when faced with tough situations our community unifies and works together we can't control when this virus will stop whip-sawing us or when our economy will be fully rebuilt what we can do is practice the core values that make our community strong respect courage fairness and most importantly generosity the water campus is a prime example phase one is completed and it will ultimately have space dedicated to collaborative coastal science and applied research scientists and engineers are gathering today on one campus to help solve the problems of our shifting coastlines so we can preserve how we live and work at fishman haygood we look forward to being right here with you to help make louisiana an exceptional place to work and live [Music] hi i'm craig nederville iberia bank private client group manager non-profit organizations are an important part of our community the programs and services they provide to individuals and families are immeasurable during times like these more than ever we recognize the current economic strain that affects many of our partners throughout the greater baton rouge area as a long-time volunteer and supporter of nonprofits i'm equally proud to be an associate of iberia bank who is just as passionate about supporting these organizations as i am iberia bank reached an exciting milestone recently by merging with first horizon bank the communities we serve will continue to be at the heart of everything we do together our combined company remains committed to supporting baton rouge and creating positive changes across our entire footprint through the first horizon louisiana foundation we are committed to critical investments that support strong partnerships with non-profit and civic organizations community development initiatives and greater access to financial services for everyone we will continue to be a strong steward of this community to be better together and now it is my pleasure to introduce the president of the best companies group mr peter burke peter all right thank you julio and wow what an awesome setup what an awesome production and i want to extend my greetings to all of you tuning in uh from wherever you might be tuning in from but i guess it doesn't really matter where we are all we know is that covet 19 has prevented us from celebrating altogether like we normally do but fret not we are still in the presence of greatness we still want to celebrate you and this award is perhaps more meaningful than it ever has been before now the baton rouge business report always manages to make this best places to work in baton rouge event a memorable experience this morning is no exception we are going to have some fun for sure now our firm was once again the research partner for this designation now in its seventh year if you were all here i'd be saying something like the best places to work in baton rouge are in the house are you ready to celebrate julio well that seems a little awkward from the studio here but i'm still super excited to celebrate you so it's worth it while this virtual event has most of you tuning in from various places it does not lessen the importance and excitement of this awesome achievement so congratulations this award is unlike any other simply put you are being recognized for creating workplaces where your employees love to come to work but beyond that you are being honored for being the best of the best in baton rouge our research is teaching us that many organizations these days are focusing on increasing employee engagement which is awesome it really is great to see the increased emphasis on the employee experience however even though many are getting better only a select few will receive this kind of recognition and that includes the winners tuning in today our firm best companies group conducted the two-part assessment process for all who applied twenty-five percent of the out of the evaluation was based upon the benefits you offer and the cool things you are doing for your employees this part is fun each year i find new and cool things employers are doing some of my favorites include beer card fridays wear whatever you want dress codes bring your parent to work day solar eclipse celebration day yeah yup that's a real thing and office closures between christmas and new year's now will closing between thanksgiving and new year's be next i don't know probably but these are the kinds of benefits that make a huge difference now the other 75 of the evaluation was from part two of the assessment the employee engagement survey to recognize workplace greatness credibly you must ask the employees directly and anonymously what they think and that is exactly what we did according to most research firms between 35 and 40 percent of u.s employees are considered engaged i'll say that number again between 35 and 40 percent of employees around the country are considered engaged or connected to their employer how good are the winners tuning in compared to that 35 percent well the answer is pretty darn good how about 96 percent good oh julio can i get it okay all right again a little bit awkward here from the stage with just a handful of people but we want to celebrate you in a very loud way i also wanted to look at baton rouge compared to the other 50 plus programs we run in the united states that number is pretty darn good as well again only 35 percent are connected to their employer or engaged the national number is 93 percent but not as good as baton rouge where again the average engagement for your winners is 96 that's pretty awesome so if you wanted to say you were some of the best places to work in the country the scores would support that and so would i so how about that i'll also throw in a couple of other facts from the research that may interest you as well the top three drivers of employee engagement for the best places to work in baton rouge let's start with number three employees liking the type of work they do the number two driver having confidence in the leadership of the organization and the number one driver of employee engagement is employees feeling valued at work so if you want to move the needle on employee engagement those three drivers will have the most impact now as a result of this remarkable work your brand as an employer is getting stronger you will win the battle for talent you will enjoy reduced turnover and you will receive better qualified job candidates now where is the bad news in all of that okay enough of me as i wrap up i just want you to realize that many organizations are struggling to find excellence in this new normal you are different excellence has been normal for you for a very very long time so congratulations again to all of you winners and i'll throw it back to julio thanks for having me thank you thank you thank you peter uh really appreciate him flying down he had called and said hey since you're doing a virtual would you like me to do a virtual live i said no we need it live bring your energy and he certainly has that as he does this program all over the country and the western hemisphere now it's time for our 2020 best places to work winners but first i want to show you something hot off the press it comes in the mail today and for some of you maybe tomorrow the best places to work special publication not only does it feature uh the rankings and the companies in the best places to work companies but there's a special section on the faces and voices of leadership in the capital region you won't want to miss it and we'll be right back in one minute after this special [Music] [Applause] announcement home it's not just a place it's a feeling home is everlasting it's always been there and it'll never leave it's the food it's your favorite place off the beaten path it's the people it's also hard to explain but not to those who understand it you're proud of this place and so are we we've always been here cheering you on helping this place we call home thrive now we are making it our mission to be a champion for louisiana to continue to help shape this big beautiful amazing state we all love into something greater and we aren't alone every agent employee and policyholder is a part of that mission so stand up get ready because louisiana's future is bright our business is louisiana's business and we're just getting started yes that doesn't inspire i don't know what what does well welcome back it's time for the best places to work 2020. let's take it away stephanie introducing the 2020 small and medium employer category winners baton rouge youth coalition catapult creative media [Music] cma technology solutions [Music] commerce title and abstract company cypress title dna workshop emergent method invoke falcon winkler first national bankers bank share gator works [Music] gresham smith guaranty restoration services guaranty corporation hannes t bourgeois labar associates lipsies lwcc [Music] matt moran construction consultants patrician management people's bank [Music] red six media sigma consulting group sparkhound stewart and company general contractors taylor porter the lds group [Music] the pengburn group 368 [Music] transformix [Music] informatics weimer federal credit union [Music] introducing the 2020 large employer category winners amerihealth caritas louisiana b1 bank benny's car wash blue cross and blue shield of louisiana bsx insurance eq health solutions gallagher gmfs mortgage home bank hga iem keane miller [Music] louisiana healthcare connections pelican state credit union phelps dunbar red river bank [Music] the lemoyne company congratulations 2020 winners julio back to you congratulations to all of this year's winners and now like we do every single year we want to recognize the number one place to work in baton rouge in both the small to medium-sized category in the large companies category but first check out this special message [Music] [Applause] congratulations to this year's best places to work thank you for your commitment to providing a great workplace for residents in the baton rouge community we're thankful to have a great place to work and thought we'd share the opinions of some of our team members on why they love it at mercedes-benz of baton rouge people tell me all the time that even don't know me they go you love what you do don't you i know i do i really do everybody says it's a team but it's more of a family here you're really not alone because everyone's willing to help it was easy for me to call this home by far the best place that i've ever worked as you can see having the best place to work usually means having the best people and we feel our team is just that the best their commitment to our culture inspires us every day and we couldn't provide a best or nothing experience without them thank you for your commitment to your employees and ultimately our community and congratulations from us at mercedes-benz of africa hi i'm joe scartino and on behalf of everyone at wafb it's an honor to be a part of the 2020 louisiana business symposium 2020 is proving to be full of an entirely new set of challenges like many other businesses we needed to find new ways to serve our community with so much happening and changing we've added two new half hours of news the new 9 news alert at 4 and the hour long 9 news at 6 so we can take a deep dive into the issues that actually matter right here we're also working to better serve the businesses in our community with creative strategies to help them reach more clients on the best platforms for their business pulling research and strategies that are working across the country and bringing them to you you know we love covering stories about perseverance and recovery if i know anything i know louisianians are resilient even navigating something as difficult as the impacts of covid19 we are finding our way and together we will all get through [Music] [Applause] [Music] this welcome back now we want to recognize the top three ranked best places to work in both categories but first for the small to medium-sized company category winners in third place this year first national bankers bank in second place moran construction consultants and the top-ranked small to medium-sized company this year in first place weimer federal credit union defending his title congratulations gentlemen now for the large company category winners in third place gmfs mortgage changing lives in second place in the large category phelps dunbar in the top ranked large company this year in first place congratulations home bank [Music] congratulations to all six of our winners now besides honoring the best places to work companies this morning one of our goals is to give you a little bit of insight give you a little tak
-home value to improve your organization so this year we've changed our format a little bit i've invited all three winners of both categories to stick around and have a little panel discussion so i want you to sit back and enjoy our conversation ladies and gentlemen please have a seat and thank you for joining us as a matter of fact uh i want to introduce uh who's up here ronnie stevens with weimar uh federal credit union mr john moran with moran construction consultants mr joey quinlan with first national bankers bank chairs mr john bordelon with home bank and miss suzy fur with phelps dunbar and mr t brown with gmfs welcome and thank you for joining us this morning i know we're living in a lot of crazy times so look i want to start off with the big white elephant in the room and uh uh ronnie we're going to start with you how are you prepared or not so prepared for stay home order and when everything hit and has it changed your perspective on working remote well actually we were lucky that a couple weeks before all this hit we had actually done a tabletop disaster recovery exercise and kind of identified some holes that we had some things we needed to work on so we had some of that in place but the big thing is we realized we didn't have all the equipment in place for employees to work from home so we had to ask employees to use some of their personal pcs laptops so it was a challenge you know getting all that up to speed and and getting everybody set up and it was kind of a learning curve i think for some of us but uh and yes it definitely has changed our perspective you know i guess i i didn't realize how much of what we do can actually be done remotely and and still be productive so i think that's opened our eyes to to long-term potentials of working from home you know i still worry a little bit about how that may affect culture you know going forward but another thing that was surprising though is we were still able to stay connected and and uh through you know zoom staff meetings and lots of emails back and forth and things like that so uh it was it was a forced test run for us that opened our eyes to a lot of things i think how about you guys joey i think we did it it did a pretty good job with uh responding quickly rit staff within a week had most of our offices and staff that were working from home equipped like they needed to be i think we we've always done a pretty good job from a business continuity perspective because of preparing for hurricanes our company has offices located across the southeast and so we've got a pretty robust disaster recovery plan but i think it was having the bandwidth with vpn for us to be able to get those folks home for the most part i guess about a month into the pandemic we were probably working with 15 to 20 percent in the office and the remainder at home and i think you know our customers didn't even know that that was the case and so very proud of our team and especially our it staff on on how they stepped up and made sure we were equipped that's awesome what about uh you all susie at phelps um it was pretty seamless i have to give credit to our um it team they had us prepared actually well ahead of time we were fortunate to have invested in in systems with no knowledge of what was coming and that caused it to be pretty seamless for us it was you know as attorneys we could easily work from home we could log into our network and that was that was great with very little business interruption t uh what about you guys um your perspective on remote because that seems like the big question now uh uh how did it change and and has it shifted your perspective or were you guys already in the groove yeah i think it definitely shifted my perspective um we've always had a number of people working remotely we have underwriters in different different parts of the country that that we've hired but to move 175 employees that are in an operations center virtually all to a remote situation was something that gave us a lot of concern but i will tell you not only did our i.t department do an amazing job after the first four hours once we realized we needed more bandwidth and we had you know 200 people logging on we normally had 20 people the productivity that we experienced far exceeded any of our expectation and i think some of it had to do with we were coupled by you know people staying at home now they're forced at home our business you know really increased during this time because of low interest rates so there's a lot of demand for work so i would say that i do not see a situation where we have 175 to 180 employees back in the office the way we did pre-march 15. and uh john what about you guys at home bank well i think we're all facing the new normal which will be a lot of people working from home we thanks to our i.t just like everybody else in two weeks we had 240 people remotely working securely to serve their customers on top of that we did 3200 ppp loans and most of those were people working from home or working shift work so that we would have our social distancing so hats off to everybody that basically contributed to make the customer experience so great during a time when there was so much uncertainty in the world yeah wow good point um john i wanted to uh john moran with more infrastructure i want to turn it over to you for a moment um you know we uh when we wrote about you guys and did a little research uh uh i have to ask this question what's been the single biggest challenge for you as a company either as it pertains to your customers or your employees how did you guys pivot or innovate being in the in the midst of a pandemic and being in the construction business uh for us it's just accommodating growth structurally and in the pandemic being able to do that remotely we were able to work remotely very well we were pretty well suited for it because we travel a good bit anyway due to our work and so during the pandemic we focused on structure and making sure that everyone understood their you know their role and expectations we broke into small groups so that we'd have leadership involved across the board making sure that everyone had access to you know an upper management person to to rely on and we just kept a very open line of communication communication was key for us internally as well as externally with our clients great john um borderline i'm going to turn it back to to you speaking of all the pivoting we've been doing uh what initiatives did you guys take to maintain the culture of employees working at home and i want to start off with the story of the socks of the socks the socks the sock something about uh one of your employees and and and some of the things that you guys did differently at home bank uh to make sure you're important okay but um you know i think all all companies were put under a lot of pressure uh in a short amount of time this is something new we actually look back at our disaster recovery plan and we had under their pandemic low risk and so every policy every procedure had to be adjusted and and then you have your employee base we have 455 employees scattered across southwest louisiana and mississippi and and having connectivity to all of those were was a very difficult thing but you know we started a a couple of years ago with our motto which is one team working to create exceptional customer experiences and i could not be prouder of all 455 of our employees working from wherever their cars sometimes their homes and working collectively to get the customer what they needed while uh it may seem that business has shut down it really has not and we've been just as busy during covit as we have any other time so it was quite the challenge working remotely working collectively with different people finding those people to make that happen all for the sake of the customer and very proud of the effort that all 455 people put forth that's awesome suzy i want to go to you we're all going through transitions in in all organizations right in a lot of different ways technology culture everything else how do you all get your employee buying at phelps dunbar when implementing uh implementing systematic changes or or any new initiatives i i think it starts with taking into account the employees perspectives and you know when we're making any decisions figuring out what impact that's going to have on employees and then managing our decisions based on that that's the one side and i think the other side is then communications and sharing information we experience that when employees have been a part of the knowledge they are more likely to understand what's going on and be willing to buy into it like if i think you know the pandemic it was an issue for us as i'm sure was for so many people of the are we in are we out are we in are we out do we go back to work is it safe is it not and there was a tremendous amount of communication to all employees that i think allowed them to see you know the issues that were being grappled with and so by the time you know the decision came that we need to get back in there was plenty of buy-in everybody seemed to be on board because they had been informed all along that's great and you know i want to throw this out to all of you actually and t i want to start off with you because communication is we've never had more tools to uh be connected yet uh you know communication is always a challenge right in today's world there's so much information overload there's a lot of speed everybody's hearing a lot of voices and and so how do you uh t i want to start off with you how do you ensure your employees really truly understand your company's long-term strategy and pursue it so how do you communicate that with your team you know i mean like susie said like you said communication really is the primary component one of the things that we've done for the last 21 years is every monday at 10 30 our management team all levels of management every aspect of our company is represented used to be six people now there's 20 people uh we're very fortunate about that but you know and we talk about each of the issues that anybody may have and everybody in that room understands it and then it can go through the organization to the rest of the employees and so it's a it could be a 30 minute meeting it could be an hour and a half meeting depending upon the issues that we have but that's how we've really been able to focus on that because you know we used to have one location and we have you know 13 locations and being able to deal with that is critical do you have a set agenda already laid out every week so the set agenda is everybody has the floor for as long as they want it gotcha ronnie what about you guys well it may sound a little bit like a broken record but communication is is obviously the key and and for us it starts at the top and making sure that the management team is always on the same page and so we've always had a monthly strategic management team meeting uh to discuss you know whatever issue is going on in the credit union and actually during the pandemic we turned that into a daily meeting where we met every morning sometimes it was meeting with only last five minutes but it made sure that we were addressing any concerns that came up among the staff or anything that was going on with the membership so i think that's the most important thing is making sure that that management team is all on the same page so that the staff gets the same message from everybody john what about you guys how do you ensure man that they're getting the message so we we really let our whole team dictate the direction our company takes long term it's based on the individuals that are part of our group that that lead our company in a certain direction and so it's um it's staying in constant contact with employees at every level as to what their interests are for the company what their ambitions are and where they see themselves in the future and working towards that with them individually and then as a team together joey you guys and are you using zoom or have you started with your executive team live i mean what are you guys doing right now we've done we're doing a hybrid of different forms of communication one of the things that we did we started this past year that i think was particularly noteworthy is that we started doing an all-employee meeting and we did that it was video to be a video teleconference and everybody within the company could participate in that and so they could pose questions and we went through the the overall performance of the company we had everybody within the management team have air time to be able to talk about what was going on in their respective area and so all of their employees were able to provide feedback in preparation for that meeting we've done that trying to do that semi-annually and we did one in mid-year after after june 30th we did that we did it in the form of a video because of the challenges of with roughly 160 employees stretched across seven different states it was going to be very difficult for us to do it so we did it in the form of a video with an emphasis on our mission and our core values and our vision and we remind every time we have a meeting with all of the our folks we emphasize that over and over again and i think that really helps with engagement with all of our employees neat and susie what about you guys you have different law offices around the state yet uh how are you communicating with the corps and then in your own office here in baton rouge with the managing partners and and all different types of attorneys going on yeah well particularly while we were remote we're back in now so that makes it back to kind of normal um but when we were remote we were by practice group particularly we're having you know zoom happy hour zoom whatever it was funny to watch the progression of maybe those who are less technologically inclined and more you know you'd start out you wouldn't see them on the screen then maybe you'd see you know a blur of them and then eventually it would get better but we really kept in touch through zoom predominantly i want to shift gears here because something that was fascinating most of you made it through this past year with single digit turnover which is not normal in today's world and so i uh i want to kind of and i'm going to jump around here uh what's your secret t i mean i i looked at your numbers uh from the research analysis and so uh um have you been able to retain your people so well well i think first and foremost um like most businesses our employees are our most important asset and knowing that our employees can leave or leave every day and make a decision whether or not they want to come back to work for us is is kind of basis of how we operate and you know we want to nurture that relationship we want to put them in a position to be successful 90 of our employees have some form of incentive compensation that's tied to the overall objectives of the company and that gives them you know a chance to really benefit from the hard work that they do and part of it is our management team continuing to be involved with our employees excuse me and making sure that we hear what their issues are and what their needs are you know and like our tagline is changing lives and first and foremost we want to change the lives of our employees and ultimately our clients and then our community and that's kind of the basis of how we operate john moran what about you guys i think it's a just a focus on our team you know developing each individual beyond just the professional level you know we focus on you know physical fitness and social issues and quite a few things beyond just professional business related issues and i think that really draws our team together we get to know each other very well we work very hard together we have a lot of fun together we keep it light in the office we just try to make it a place that people want to work and and and be together enjoying you know success professionally but also um individually in life that's john board alone what about you guys at home bank well i i think every time you have an employee come into your office it's a it's a great challenge to be able to develop them and make something m
re than they expect when they come in the first day so as stated earlier by t it is our most important asset and so we take that very seriously we take every opportunity to be able to train them not just for the job that they're hired for but potentially others in many cases we've had lateral moves where one particular job did not necessarily fit their style and maybe move to a different department so i think it's important to be able to put those right employees in the right place give them the extra training they needed so that they will be eligible for promotion going forward excellent excellent i want to shift gears here most of you offer some type of diversity training um joey i want to start off with you how's that impacted first nationals culture in the bottom line i think one of the things that we've done recently this past year was we've put in place a hr committee that includes everyone from all of the areas of the bank specifically as it relates to diversity and and we've had those folks be able to provide input on how we can improve our recruiting and in in focus on inclusion within the workplace and so we we look at that from a standpoint of diversity not just ethnically or racially but from ideas and thoughts and backgrounds and experiences and that's worked very well for us and we're continuing i don't think we can ever any company can ever do enough but it has to stay stop top of mind and that's one of the things that we work on all the time susie what about what's been the impact of phelps dunbar um i mean i think we've yes we're certainly doing our training as well we've been working you know with recent events we're now you know looking inside of ourselves to figure out what more can we do to um you know have an even greater impact than we have been having before the legal market like the banking and others i'm sure you know struggles with diversity and recruiting diverse candidates and so that's you know it requires particular deliberate effort to make sure we can keep keep a diverse workforce all right i had fun with this question so i'm not even going to call it i am just going to open the floor for a second so think about this so for years companies have been adjusting their culture to attract and to retain millennials we've been hearing about how millennials are this and millennials are that i'm sure uh you've even it's crossed your mind but now we're seeing a new generation in the workforce gen z or post-millennials born roughly between 1997 and 2010 and so i i want to just open up the floor and say and and ask what has been your experience with uh gen z or so far anybody want to take a pop at that i'll i mean i'll i'll give it a shot we've had a limited experience thus far but i do think one of the one of the fundamental components that differences that we've seen is you know these young people were raised with a smartphone in their hand i mean everything that they the kind of almost their identity is that phone and their social media and and so the way they communicate via text versus verbally is i think something that we as an organization are going to have to kind of adjust with i i'm more of a verbal person i'm not really much of i started texting maybe you know eight years ago these guys grew up with a vibe with a body you started slacking it baby so you know i think that's going to be that's going to be something that organizations are going to have to really really deal with how we communicate with them ronnie any any thoughts you know when i thought about this question i really don't have a lot of personal experience you know because we don't have anybody right now on staff that falls into that category and actually all my kids were born before 1997 so i guess my experience is just personal experience out in the work world and you know i guess the one thing that i've seen or impression i have is that this group of kids seem to ask first you know what can my employer do for me rather than what can i do for my employer you know so i i guess if i could give them some advice i would say focus on the other one focus on what you can do for your employer and then the other will take care of itself john borland i want to go back to you um and i want to shift gears here uh again what role should the ceo of the executive team play in creating a company culture that's worthy of the best places to work recognition uh i'll ask again what role should the executive team of the ceo play in creating a company culture that's worthy of a best place to work recognition well i'm sure that's different for every company being a company of 455 employees we have a lot of structure and we have talented managers at various levels that are able to assist the ceo to move this forward however we found ourselves some time back going in different directions growth sometimes brings in different cultures that can split your organization apart and so we've been focusing significantly on this one team concept where everything we do is for the for the benefit of the customer and if every employee feels that they can work in that environment it it really turns the company around and has one major focus and and that becomes the customer and then the success just piles on so it's been a transition over the last couple years that's really taken off and i think uh to some degree the pandemic actually made it better in the sense that we had to communicate a lot more because we weren't in in the offices together we were at other offices at home or whatever so it became very difficult and and it worked so much better than it ever has so i'm very pleased to say that just coming together as one team has made us a much more effective company across the board awesome joey what are your thoughts on that topic i think for us it's been about empowerment and you know as a company grows when you're relatively small the ceo tends to be the person that provides a lot of the answers and i think as as a company grows it's really important for managers and your leaders your subordinate leaders within the company to be able to feel and be empowered feel empowered and to be able to provide the leadership to the staff and give them empowerment as well and so i really feel like the the role of the ceo is to be able to facilitate that empowerment and encourage it because it's very difficult i think in a lot of companies there's an adjustment that they go through as they as they expand and grow and some of the leadership it they have to adjust to that that they feel empowered and that has to get driven from the ceo joey i want to stop right there because you guys do something different you know uh cyber security is a hot topic everywhere right certainly in the financial area for sure in the legal arenas but each quarter you have a program your employees who successfully complete fishing tests and or discover actually fishing attempts are eligible for drawing for 200 gift cards i think it's pretty creative and i think something we can all steal can you tell us about the impact and what exactly sure it's been very positive for us our uh our uh it staff and the hr department collaborated on that and you know in in a regulated institution like a bank not only is it a requirement but i mean you have to do information security training and testing and so this was something we were doing already anyway and so in an effort to try to create heightened awareness we basically created a raffle structure that on a quarterly basis every time you identify a legitimate phishing attempt and you click and make it a fish alert on that one it identifies sends you a message congratulations you've got another chance and so i would equate it to almost like raffle tickets and without having to pay for a raffle ticket you're just investing with additional uh deal or diligence and being vigilant about the heightened information security awareness and so it's worked very well for us hats off to our it staff and the hr department was really creative and it's it's created a a fun element to it as well as making it competitive everybody's always looking forward to see who won the raffle at the end of the quarter neat neat i want to uh open this up we're going to be wrapping up in a moment and i just want to open up the floor more than half of the small to medium-sized best places to work nearly three-quarters of the large bestest place to work offer employees additional paid time off for community service and volunteer work what are the benefits of that for those of you that have that anybody speak to that i think it's it's i don't know why maybe it's more so with banks than other companies but we feel this desire to help our communities grow because we become part of that community we think it's very important that all of our employees get out and be engaged in their community so we do give that time off when they're on boards or whatever if they're doing a special project we let them go and pay them for that because it's an important part of what we think raises our company up ronnie well i guess our situation's a little unique and that we serve just one company in basf so our goal has always been to be as involved as we can with them and all of the different community activities that they do and they do a tremendous job so but i think for the staff that we you know we allow them time during the day to go help and participate in these events and to me what it does for them is it just reinforces what we're all about what our mission is they're out there talking to the to the employees of basf and and helping out in the event and realizing how that impacts the community so we we kind of do it indirectly but i think it really just bottom line reinforces that we're there to help people i want to wrap up with one final question that i want to give an opportunity for all six of you uh first i want to say thank you very much for investing your time this morning and sharing with our audience uh but i want to wrap up with this final question and john i want to start with you uh mr moran uh what one piece of advice would you share with people who are creating a best place to work kind of culture there are a lot of people watching that didn't make the top 50 places to work much less the top three uh what one piece of advice could you share with them i would say just listen to every member of the team you know value their opinion and um and and you know their thoughts on the direction of the company you know it may be an intern that brings a great idea to the company that changes things uh so just listen you know listening throughout the the ranks of the team susie um i would say hire well spend spend time and resources in your hiring and make sure you hire uh good people i don't know if anybody's experienced this but sometimes lawyers can have difficult personalities and uh i think it's shocking i know since the inception of our office there's been a real emphasis on hiring respectful collegial cooperative ethical people and that spreads as it continues the more you recruit those people the more the culture is better and the more you know you continue to get those people so it's worth the the time and resources to do it right that's good ronnie um this one's easy for me follow the golden rule you know do unto your employees as you want it done unto you when you were in their shoes so and so that's really what that means is just when it comes time to make decisions put yourself in the employees place and look at it from their perspective our focus has been breaking down the vertical walls that separate management sometimes and other employees and and what's that done is created a dialogue amongst the all the employees that has been tremendous and i think what it wants any employee to do is be more successful at their job and therefore the whole company rises up by having that vertical communication link t you know i go back to you know the basic point of you know our employees are our most important assets and so it's communication and it's alignment of of interest and making sure that we're all moving in the same direction together and that they feel rewarded and they feel empowered in order to have the opportunities and joey i would say for us what's um like been very successful for us is facilitating a family focused and family feeling type culture and and when i say that i don't mean just family friendly but from a standpoint where employees look at each other treat each other like brothers and sisters you know familial bonds are pretty powerful within an organization and for us that has transcended in our customers feeling like they're part of the extended fnb family and it's worked very well for us and so it's it's being very family focused internally as an organization well we've run out of time thank you again for joining us this morning uh thank you for joining us for this conversation and i want to do a special thank you to our sponsors who give and do so much for our community thank you to fishman haygood mercedes-benz of baton rouge lwcc iberia bank and wfb let's continue to work together so we can make baton rouge in the capital city and louisiana a better place to live and work thank you for joining us today have a great day and that's a wrap [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you
