Massages, ‘family feel’ among Barnum’s benefits

IN GOOD HANDS: Part of the MetLife Premier Client Group, Barnum Financial Group offers benefits that include bonuses, quality health care plans and even chair massages. Pictured above, from left are: Barnum financial adviser Ronda Warrener, Controls Coordinator Donna Ricci and Agency Sales Director Matthew Sawyer. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE
IN GOOD HANDS: Part of the MetLife Premier Client Group, Barnum Financial Group offers benefits that include bonuses, quality health care plans and even chair massages. Pictured above, from left are: Barnum financial adviser Ronda Warrener, Controls Coordinator Donna Ricci and Agency Sales Director Matthew Sawyer. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE

Massaging numbers all day can be tense work. Barnum Financial Group understands that chair massages can help ease that stress.
That’s just one of the benefits of working at Barnum, winner for the medium-sized business category in Providence Business News’ 2014 Best Places to Work awards program. The company also offers perks that include professional training, continuing education, opportunities for community involvement, aggressive bonus and health care packages and an overall “family feeling.”
“I’ve been here almost four years and with MetLife for more than six years, and I find it hard to explain how Barnum is unlike any other. It’s a completely different environment,” said Amelia Nathanson, training coordinator at Barnum. “My husband jokes ‘You don’t work at a real place.’ ”
Part of MetLife’s Premier Client Group, Barnum’s success stems from infrastructure and a “culture of development,” she said.
“Education and professional development [are] huge,” Nathanson said. “We offer programs to our advisers, such as certified-financial planner courses, which are fully reimbursable.”
If employees are working towards a license, certification or advanced degrees, Barnum has programs for that, which Nathanson said “elevates the level of staff and our advisers so we can differentiate ourselves in the industry.”
Another key employee-focused initiative was instituting the Kolbe Index personality test to understand how people solve problems, said Joseph Katula, Barnum’s agency sales director for Rhode Island.
“From a professional standpoint,” he said, “the firm is always striving to be bigger and better. This is a competitive environment, but not by natural selection. It’s not cutthroat here, people compete against themselves to be the best.”
The hard work does not go unrecognized, another key component of Barnum being a best place to work: Barnum rewards its top sales performers, with trips to places such as Rome. According to Katula, the company has been voted the No. 1 office in the MetLife network the past two years, making it seven times it has received that distinction since 2004.
“When you consider the size of the global company, which in 2004 probably had about 150 offices, that’s pretty cool,” Katula said. (To honor companies for that recognition, Barnum has a black-tie affair held in a banquet facility on Wall Street.)
Hiring practices are unique at Barnum as well, Nathanson said.
“Any referral resume we get from in-house we’ll bring in even if there isn’t an opening, to talk about their skill sets,” she said. “We always interview toward skill sets and we’ve been known to meet a candidate who is exceptional and full of ideas, and mold a position around them. That allows us to cultivate true talent as opposed to just putting butts in seats.”
Nathanson also credits the company’s management team for its transparency. In previous jobs at other companies, she says employees were never aware of financial goals. At Barnum, managing directors communicate what those numbers are, helping workers see how they “fit into that picture,” she said.
“It’s so motivating to know, and it helps the firm drive toward it,” Nathanson said.
Some of Barnum’s basic benefits are also enticing for employees. Bonuses are given to workers who refer new hires. The company matches retirement contributions, which new hires can start their first day. Barnum also offers employees a choice of health care plans, which can cover between 75 percent and 99 percent of premiums for medical coverage and prescriptions.
The working environment at Barnum is also instrumental in keeping everyone happy, Katula said. “We do a lot of things that are social to create that family feeling,” he said. “We have multiple offices but try to create one Christmas party, for example. Last year, we had it in Connecticut and got a bus from Rhode Island and took the majority of the firm down.”
After-work happy hours are common, he said, as well as integrating events with families, such as off-site cookouts where “we invite everyone to let their hair down.”
Enhancing that family feel are programs such as paternity leave for birth or adoption – the company also offers reimbursement for adoption-agency fees – travel fees and paid time off before and after a birth or adoption. There are flexible hours to accommodate school events or medical appointments, as well as after-school and summer programs for kids. Barnum also offers elder-care assistance for those with aging family members, and free or discounted tickets to local family entertainment or sporting events.
The company’s community-involvement efforts are a large part of Barnum’s DNA, he said, and include putting the philanthropic rubber to the road – sometimes literally. According to Katula, Barnum regularly gives away bikes to various causes, including partnering with the Pawtucket Red Sox to give bikes to kids that have never had them and donating 19 to a local orphanage, St. Mary’s Home for Children.
The firm also hosts bowl-a-thons to raise money, partners with the U.S. Marines for its “Toys for Tots” program and works with the St. Anthony’s Food Shelter.
For Paul Blanco, Barnum managing director, it’s the people that make Barnum “a great place to work.”
“I’ve never seen a more happy, motivated, smart and professional group of people in one place,” he said.
And those chair massages are a nice touch.
“Oh, those are good,” Nathanson said with a laugh.

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