MyVest recently won two honors from WealthTech Americas — the 2022 Diversity and 2022 Wealth Tech Employer awards. In this interview, Jennifer Hartmann, MyVest’s Chief People & Culture Officer, talks with WealthTech Americas about MyVest’s strategy to develop our Inclusion & Diversity (I&D) plan and being a great employer in WealthTech.
What sets you apart from your peers this year and why?
“Inclusion” and “diversity” are two of the most popular words of this century. “They are equally important to us,” said Jenn Hartmann, MyVest’s Chief People and Culture Officer. “We can’t build or maintain diversity without inclusion, and both make us a better company.”
MyVest is regularly ranked highly by employees for our inclusive culture. “We are proud of the recognition by WealthTech Americas of our efforts in Inclusion and Diversity,” said Hartmann. “To formally support this work, a strategy was developed and we partnered with an I&D consultant to do a complete assessment of policies and practices across MyVest. They also analyzed our survey data and conducted employee interviews and focus groups.” A roadmap was developed for our work:
Become Data Driven — We developed a data-driven approach to measuring, monitoring and improving our I&D efforts, and we conduct regular employee inclusion surveys to maintain our understanding of employee sentiment on I&D in our workplace.
Training —All employees are trained in Unconscious Bias and Inclusive Hiring and our management is trained in Inclusive Leadership. We’ve also added on-demand training resources so our employees can continue their I&D learning journey.
Recruiting — MyVest defined new employee recruitment and onboarding processes focused on eliminating bias and creating a more inclusive selection process. In tandem, we established new partnerships to expand our pool of candidates from underrepresented groups, and we continue in our commitment to the nationwide Equal Pay Pledge.
Employee Engagement — MyVest encourages the activities of employee-driven Employee Resource Groups and celebrates different cultures throughout the year. The past two years, our employees joined in our Summer of Giving program to share about the charities and programs they support.
Employee Benefits — MyVest embraces flexible schedules, flexible PTO, paid parental leave and remote work opportunities. When we changed our paid parental leave to 10 weeks, we knew we needed to do more. This year, we added benefits for employees seeking fertility treatment and adoption. It was important to go beyond adding fertility benefits to our medical plans, because some would-be parents need fertility assistance that is not considered medically necessary.
MyVest participates in People & Culture awards to celebrate the strength of our diverse workforce. In the past several years we have won Best Places to Work in Fintech by American Banker, Best Tech Work Culture by Tech In Motion, and three Best Tech Manager awards.
How have your colleagues contributed towards the success of your organisation?
One of MyVest’s core values is “People Matter,” and it’s a true guiding principle — everyone’s voice is heard and encouraged. MyVestors, as we refer to ourselves, are so much more than just organizational resources. How we work together and treat one another is an indispensable part of our company’s success.
As a technology company, we seek opportunities for input from all employees to advance our technical infrastructure for continuous innovation. This includes upgrading existing technical frameworks, adding new tools, or redesigning modules or components for better performance and scale.
About the WealthTech America Awards
The WealthTech Americas Awards are hosted by Family Wealth Report. The awards include categories for technology companies supporting the family office sector covering the North American family office space. Congratulations to all the 2022 winners. You can read interviews with all of them including our own Jennifer Hartmann in their online winners magazine.
