LUNT
Generous leave for new parents, flexible schedules, kid-friendly workplaces, and ample opportunity for employee feedback are among factors that make for great places for working parents in Fort Worth, according to Mayor Betsy Price’s inaugural Best Place for Working Parents 2020 awards.
The awards initiative is part of a community-wide campaign, which includes developing a best-in-class child care model; mapping child care deserts in the city; repurposing buildings for child care or upgrading existing facilities; inspiring family-friendly business practices; using summer school spaces as early education hubs; and publicly recognizing great spaces and places for kids. Price announce the awards Feb. 28 during her annual State of the City address. Applicants were judged on family-friendly policies.
Small Business Innovator: SigmaPro Engineering
Size: Small
HQ: Fort Worth
Business: Fiber optic connectors for a major telecom client
Policies cited by mayor: Flexible schedules; emergency leave; financial assistance; training for families on relationships, financial management, emotional health; big bring your kids to work days.
David Underwood, founder of the 20-year-old SigmaPro, began focusing on culture as a business coach advised him to define it. “His advice was be active in defining the culture. Negative cultures can grow and define the business.”
Ten years ago, the company had 50 employees; today, it has about 180. SigmaPro’s culture began with the word “fast.” “If you’ve got something to do, jump on it, and do it. That was the beginning of the culture.”
“We work with peace and understanding and concern,” he continues. “There’s never a need for fighting or anger or jealousy. It just doesn’t have a place.”
Underwood wants to ensure the company has a good relationship with its employees. Managers conduct a sit-down meeting every week for 15-30 minutes, just to check in. The company also has a support specialist for employees to bring up personal matters confidentially.
SigmaPro offers financial assistance to employees who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances and need the help, such as damage to their home, a death in the family, or major medical bills. The company also donates a percentage of profits to charity, and Underwood is founding a nonprofit organization to manage gifts. SigmaPro pays its assembly workers by the piece, finding they’re more productive, and allows employees to choose their eight-hour workday within an offered 10-hour window. The company offers one week’s paid “bonding” leave for new parents, plus an additional five weeks at 80% pay to a female employee who gives birth, both on top of regular vacation.
Policy Innovator: PMG
Size: Medium
HQ: Fort Worth
Business: Digital marketing
Policies cited by mayor: Parttime work schedules allow employees to ease back in after parental leave; email and Slack messaging turned off during parental leave; kid-friendly office; $250 gift card for new parents.
Employees of the fast-growing agency who have babies receive generous leave: 12 weeks paid, for moms, six weeks for new dads, and four weeks for foster parents. The company turns off email and slack messaging while employees are on leave. “We want them to focus on what’s important to them, at that stage,” Chris Sinclair, vice president of people and culture, says. Employees can work flexible schedules to ease back in from parental leave.
For kids who are in the office, PMG’s West 7th Street office has a Lego wall and screens childrens’ movies, and the full-time barista can make kid-friendly drinks. “People don’t bat an eye if you hear a kid laughing,” Sinclair says.
About half of the company’s 240 employees are in the Fort Worth office. PMG has several remote offices, in Austin, Dallas, and New York, offering the potential for employees to move. Some employees are virtual, living and working remotely in cities where PMG doesn’t have an office. PMG adjusts compensation for employees who move to higher-cost markets. The company also shuts its offices down for two weeks during Christmas. In the digital age, “we’re able to set up alerts, so if a client needs to reach us, they can,” Sinclair says.
Event Innovator: Fidelity Investments
Size: Large
Regional HQ: Westlake
Business: Financial advising
Events cited by mayor: Annual 3,000-person, day-long intersection of work and family at HQ that includes fun runs, food trucks, cookie decorating, meet and greet with popular children’s characters; career days for middle and high school girls.
Fidelity views its offering to employees through three lenses: workplace environment, workplace “integration,” and benefits. The company’s sprawling Westlake campus has about 5,700 employees and includes collaborative spaces, amenities like ping pong tables in the cafeteria, and career center. Employees who have to leave early for doctors appointments can finish their workday at home, through use of Fidelity technology. Through the integration lens, the company sponsors an annual family day, in which employees can fish, catch and release, with their kids in the ponds on the campus. The campus also features hiking trails and an onsite gym with showers. The company’s Boundless career days for girls (pictured) include a business pitch competition.
The company’s parental leave policy includes 16 weeks paid for new moms, and six weeks paid for new dads. Other benefits in the company’s portfolio of 50 include a student loan repayment program that pays up to $10,000 of an employee’s loan balance over five years.
The company also recently, at the request of employees, launched two pilot programs in which it’s seeking a long-term solution to help employees who have adult children with special needs or aging parents. “Our associates are really excited to see what the long-term solution can be,” said Kirsten Kuykendoll, head of associate experience and Texas regional leader.
Resource Innovator: Bell
Size: Large
HQ: Fort Worth
Business: Transportation
Policies cited by mayor: Unique employee resource groups; onsite health clinic; mobile pharmacy for remote locations
Bell, which is moving to redefining flight for the future from being its history as a helicopter manufacturer, is a workplace innovator as well.
Bell has 10 employee resource groups covering interests ranging from Asian employees, to LGBTQ+, Latin Americans, women, Gen-Yers, and veterans, and another three in formation. The committees follow bylaws, and have executive leadership sponsors, and budgets proposed by ERG members and approved by management. The groups promote a sense of belonging, volunteerism, mentorship, and Bell levers them, among other things, to help recruit and represent the company at conferences. They often serve as partners for Bell’s charitable partners. “We’re leveraging their passions,” says Allison Mullis, Bell’s executive vice president of human resources.
Bell also recently launched an onsite health clinic for employees and their children at its Hurst Boulevard headquarters in partnership with Premise Health. It’s staffed by primary care, acute care, occupational health, and sports medicine providers. “The employee experience all starts with people’s health,” Mullis said.
The company also started a mobile pharmacy that visits Bell’s Grand Prairie site, and it will soon begin serving Bell’s facility in Arlington. The company’s non-union-represented employees get every other Friday off.
