Accounting firm BKD LLP has 296 full- and part-time local employees. The company pays more than half of health insurance premiums for all employees and dependents. More than 90 percent of the employees take advantage of tuition reimbursement for work-related continuing education, and each employee receives between 40 hours and 60 hours of training annually. BKD also offers an employee-mentoring program, and more than 90 percent of managerial staff are promoted from within. Other benefits include an employee assistance program, opportunities to volunteer during work hours and additional paid time off via a PTO purchase plan.
Managing Partner John Wanamaker answers SBJ’s questions:
How would you describe your company’s culture? We have a culture of putting our people first. Providing rewarding career opportunities is extremely important to us and is in fact the second leg of our mission statement.
When employees ask for raises, what factors do you weigh? We utilize monthly project evaluations, annual and semi-annual performance appraisals and the input of partners who work with the individual to evaluate an employee’s performance for compensation adjustment purposes. We also take into account the total hours worked and the amount of overnight travel that the employee incurred in the past year.
Beyond financial compensation, what benefits are most important to your staff? I think the most important benefit to them is having time off in order to maintain an adequate balance between their personal and professional lives. We have a robust (paid time off) benefit as well as providing them with 10 paid holidays, reward time off for special efforts and situational flex time.
How does your company support professional development? Our profession requires our people to get a minimum of 120 hours of continuing professional education during a three-year period. … Our people tend to average around 180 hours over the three year period. BKD pays 100 percent of our employees’ continuing education costs, including out-of-pocket expenses relative to travel, hotel, meals, etc. (for) training.
How do you reward employee accomplishments? With promotions and consideration in annual salary reviews. We recognize one employee and one partner annually as BKD PRIDE Award recipients, who are nominated by their peers for exemplifying passion, respect, integrity, discipline and excellence.
What intangibles make your company a great place to work? We have well-defined career paths that allow team members to focus on achieving their personal career goals. … Our new building provides a great work environment for our people to work in. … We have a coaching program to allow our people to get candid feedback from individuals within BKD that have a vested interest in seeing the person succeed. We provide coffee, tea and soda free to our employees. During tax season and during other crunch times, we provide lunch and/or snacks for teams.
Just For Fun If there were no limitations – budget or otherwise – what benefit would you begin offering employees tomorrow? I would love to take all of our employees and their families on an annual Caribbean cruise or other destination.[[In-content Ad]]
A Springfield couple launched 24-hour fitness center Iron Knights Strafford; Springfield-based Meridian Title Co. LLC made its debut in Mount Vernon; and a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held in conjunction with the grand opening of Render Flooring LLC.
