Mario Kart and pickleball tournaments. Season tickets to the New York Islanders hockey team. Trips for top performers to tropical locales. Scotsman Guide released a call for mortgage lenders, brokerages and vendors to tell their stories about what sets their offices apart, the reasons that work becomes something more than work. Dozens of companies responded, opening the doors to give a glimpse behind their logos.
This month, the magazine is releasing its inaugural Top Workplaces feature. It’s a showcase for mortgage companies around the country to talk about what makes them unique, their perks and the ways they accomplish their mission while helping their employees advance in their careers. The mortgage companies featured on the following pages are both large and small. Some have thousands of employees. Some are just beginning to sprout with fewer than 50.
Importantly, this isn’t a ranking. Scotsman Guide editors identified and highlighted some of the more intriguing offices around the country. Most mortgage companies generally offer competitive salaries and benefits, but each company has its own flavor, and these unique elements — as you’ll see on the following pages — often attract attention.
It’s also important to acknowledge that this is a keyhole view into these offices. All businesses have bottlenecks and pain points. Many companies aim to create a family atmosphere but fall short for one reason or another.
At the same time, not all workplaces are the same. There are some companies where employees trudge to work, but there are many others where work takes on a higher calling and employees look forward to what they can accomplish.
In this exercise, time and again, mortgage companies pointed to the mission of serving clients and helping them become homeowners. After all, that’s the ultimate goal for all of these companies, whether they’re banks, brokerages or even vendors helping lenders do their jobs more efficiently.
The companies that submitted for Top Workplaces also pointed to ways that they help their employees advance in their careers. Some hire top mortgage originators for coaching and mentoring sessions. Others have cross-training sessions so that originators understand the pressures on underwriters and vice versa.
Many of the companies wrote about creating a transparent office environment for their employees. And still others talked about efforts to create a more diverse workforce so that the businesses reflect the communities they serve.
Mortgage companies also highlighted the many ways they give back. These include scholarship funds for Gold Star children as well as charitable events for the Ronald McDonald House and Susan G. Komen breast cancer organization.
Another theme that emerged was the pride that companies felt seeing employees praise their co-workers in meetings and on internal message boards. Birthdays, work anniversaries and extra effort are frequently called out. Many companies have luncheons or treats for these events, yet another fringe benefit that’s offered.
The perks, including happy hours and those food trucks and ice cream trucks parked on-site, ease the workday stress. But again, the greater calling remains the same: to help borrowers become homeowners and give them a better chance to build generational wealth.
