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Financial wellbeing, retirement and workplace savings specialist, WEALTH at work, runs on the ‘mum and dad principle’ – a concept that centres upon the idea that if you wouldn’t do something for someone who is important to you, you shouldn’t do it at all. Director, Jonathan Watts-Lay talks to HR Grapevine about culture, award wins and encouraging more women to join the industry.
It does say a lot when not only you win best ‘Big Organisation in the UK’ (the category is for businesses employing between 250-1,999 employees) but it’s also for a second time. Not only that but the business scooped, The Best Company within Financial Services accolade. I meet Watts-Lay expecting that for the rest of the year he can just put his feet up, but he tells me it’s actually the opposite and with a win comes the responsibility of keeping up standards.
"The employees complete the paperwork independently, ensuring their responses are unbiased by us," he says.
Jonathan Watts-Lay
Director, WEALTH
‘Our culture is often commented upon’
You cannot fake culture, and Watts-Lay says that one of the things he is most proud of is that there are multiple comments about the working environment. “We have clients and suppliers that come and see us and what we often hear is that our culture is highly positive,” he says.
Part of looking after clients and customers wealth is ensuring that employees are financially educated themselves. “We offer everything from providing financial support to our own staff including educational seminars and videos to help with saving via payroll deductions,” he explains. It makes sense to practice what you preach.
We’ve had people that have come in over the last 20 years that have started out as very junior and now they are very senior – our staff feel empowered to progress
Twenty years ago, the business was a different beast, a start-up – culture can get lost as operations grow and it’s something they are aware of. “There’s always a danger that entrepreneurial flair goes out of the window as you get bigger – we’ve now got 430 staff and there is a saying that no-one can remember more than 200 people at any one time,” he says.
Part of the culture is that while there is a hierarchy it’s only obvious from job titles not mannerisms. “It’s quite hard to spot, by the nature of it some of our directors maybe a bit older but you wouldn’t know they were more senior because of their interactions for example,” he says. There is a belief in the business that employees work better if they feel comfortable in approaching everyone, regardless of who they are.
