FALL 2019
THE PENTEGRA PULSE What’s Happening At Pentegra
In This Issue
President’s Perspective Welcome To Pentegra! Happy Anniversary! Understanding the BRAVO Program BRAVO Recipients Community Service Corner Pentegra's Financial Fitness Fridays Have You Seen Us In The News?
President’s Perspective As we start the 4th quarter, it is crazy to think that another year-end is right around the corner. 2019 is shaping up to be one of the best years ever on many fronts. We celebrated our 75th anniversary last year and Pentegra has taken some significant steps to help ensure that we will be around for a long time to come. First, we are making a very sizable investment in our technology to make sure that we are ready for the significant growth that is coming our way. We also need to ensure that this growth comes without additional personnel requirements that we have had to make in the past. With the competition driving down fees in the market, we need to drive down our costs to keep up. We do this through automation and making your ability to do your job much easier. The technology enhancements being worked on right now with Relationship Velocity will impact each and every one of us in a good way. Automation does not mean job reductions; it means we can do more with the same number of employees. That is how you compete in today’s marketplace. Sales is also having their best year with many key wins and new relationships forged. As I mentioned on the employee call we have partnered with Integrity Advisors right in our own backyard and they are moving their block of 60 or so DB plans to Pentegra. They also sell 20 – 30 new plans each year.
PAGE 1
FALL 2019
THE PENTEGRA PULSE
Also, through our partnership with TIAA-CREF (“TIAA”), we have now been approved in six states to provide our multiple-employer expertise to private college associations in those states. It was our service and repuation that resulted in TIAA recommending that one of the state’s terminate their current provider, and hire Pentegra in their place. Finally, our biggest partnership ever was just announced two weeks ago with ADP, the country’s largest payroll provider, who selected Pentegra to be their fiduciary partner. These partnerships will generate millions of dollars of revenue over the next few years. These success stories don’t just happen by luck, they happen through the hard work of our sales team and the hard work of each of you that helps to give Pentegra the reputation as being a high quality, service-oriented company. A key to being a successful company is making sure the company has the right culture—one that makes every employee feel important, gets them engaged and helps to reinforce what the company is all about. We recently completed the first round of the Pentegra Way and I get the sense we are heading in the right direction towards being the company we all want Pentegra to be. It won’t happen overnight, but if we all work at it, we will get there. Financially, net income through September of $4.3 million is tracking ahead of budget by just short of $1 million. Pentegra is certainly on the upswing, I want to personally thank each of you, without you none of the things mentioned here would be possible. Keep up the great work!!!
PAGE 2
THE PENTEGRA PULSE
FALL 2019
Welcome To Pentegra! Sean Dollard Trade Administrator White Plains Marcia Merritt Account Manager Remote Employee Richard DiRusso Business Analyst White Plains
Jennifer Braun Business Process Engineer White Plains Michael Gleason Assistant Vice PresidentInternal Controls
Happy Anniversary! Linda Viggiano – 30 Years Rosie Burfeind - 20 Years Rich Brolly - 10 Years Lindsay Hileman - 5 Years Kris Krikorian - 5 Years Jeff Autero - 5 Years
White Plains Katelynn Bonney Internal Sales Representative Remote Employee
April Horne Relationship Manager Remote Employee
PAGE 3
FALL 2019
THE PENTEGRA PULSE
Understanding the BRAVO Program How Does the Program Work? Through the Pentegra BRAVO Rewards Program, you can earn points for many different forms of service excellence—to both internal and external customers, management, your peers, and others and for exemplifying “The Pentegra Way” fundamentals. These points can then be redeemed for gifts of your choice! How Can I Earn Points? Points can be earned in a variety of ways, for a variety of reasons. A manager, peer, customer, partner or vendor can nominate and award a Pentegra employee for outstanding service, for exceeding customer expectations, for going above and beyond the call of duty, for suggesting improvements in the way we do what we do and for exemplifying “The Pentegra Way” fundamentals. Suggested reward criteria have been established and are posted, along with all program materials, to SharePoint under the HR tab under the BRAVO Rewards Program section. How are Points Calculated? Points are calculated as follows: Manager/Management Recognition: 2 points Peer Recognition: 1 point External Vendor Recognition: 2 points Client/Partner Recognition: 4 points CEO Recognition: 10 points How Can I Be Nominated? In order to nominate an employee, simply go to the Namely system and complete a nomination form. The form should include the employee’s name and department, along with what they did that went above and beyond typical expectations. How Will I Know When I Receive a BRAVO Nomination? You’ll be notified when you receive a BRAVO Reward Program nomination/reward with a congratulatory email that details what you did, who nominated you for the award and the number of points that you’ve earned. In addition, you will receive a special program sticker placed in your work area to let everyone know that you’ve received a BRAVO award! How Can I Keep Track of My Points? Our Namely Human Resources system will keep an ongoing tally of each employee’s points. Employees will be able to log into the Pentegra Namely system and view how many points they have available for redemption. Your points never expire, so you can keep accumulating them over time. How Can I Redeem Points? An online catalogue of gift items will be available on our BRAVO Rewards tab on the SharePoint site. When you’re ready to redeem your points, view the catalogue and choose your gift, and log on to the Namely system to submit your redemption request. View the brochure here.
Recent BRAVO! Recipients
Tiffany Cawley Andre Ralliford Jessica Mapes Jennifer Pinto
Maria Siegel
David DePasquale Joanne BentivoglioMoreno Kathryn Brooks Lorraine Bailey-Khalil Margaret Westervelt Anabelle Calderon Paula Kay Jennifer Moore Leah Moehlman Jennie Mar Elana Iuspa Elizabeth Parker Bridget Boyd Daniel Mckenna Jacqueline Drew
Michael Jond
Pamela Siegel Patrick Mcgrath Verene Joseph Marcia Merritt
Vanessa Urrego
Katie Kostikj
Tracy Villanueva Jonathan Defiore Michael Syrowski Sheila Montgomery
Branislav Lakic
Beata Bierezowiec
Shirley Horner
Ashley Mohr
Ryan Barbara
Barbara Petnuch
Cheryl Nurse
Chris Ortega
Chris Patchey Debra Durso Gretchen Williams Jeff Autero
Karen Kelsch
Maureen Hamblin Alessandro Limardi Carolina Luna Catherine Bomba Vasso Morse
PAGE 4
FALL 2019
THE PENTEGRA PULSE
Community Service Corner On Site Project
This year, in an effort to promote our Pawsibilities program and continue our commitment to corporate citizenship, our on-site volunteer activity for the White Plains and Shelton offices will involve making dog pull toys for SPCA and Paws Crossed. The dog pull toys are used in the socialization of the dogs up for adoption, helping them learn to play and engage in positive human interaction.
Pentegra Corporate Volunteer Day
Pentegra volunteers worked hard helping Access Equestrian get ready for their big move to a new farm.
Similar to past on-site projects, we are looking for volunteers to donate a small part of their day. Our on-site projects are designed to allow everyone to contribute even a small amount of time by bringing the activities in-house. The project will take place on November 19th from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in both the White Plains and Shelton offices. In preparation for the project, we’re looking for donations of old t-shirts. The t-shirts can be any adult size or color, with or without graphics. We’ll be using these tshirts to construct the dog pull toys. There will be a box placed in the lunch rooms of both offices to collect donations. As we get closer to the event, we’ll send out another email with sign up instructions. We look forward to another successful in-house project and thank you in advance for your donations of t-shirts and time!
PAGE 5
FALL 2019
THE PENTEGRA PULSE
Pentegra's Financial Fitness Fridays Over the summer months, we hosted a series of webinars, Financial Fitness Fridays, that were designed to help employees better understand resources available and maximize our retirement benefit programs. It has proven to be successful as we’ve seen a more participant activity since the inception of the programs. Below is a list of webinars held over the last several months: June 25th – Make the Most of Your Financial Wellness Benefit – presented by Tim Delaney, Financial Finesse Overview of the resources offered through Financial Finesse and how to access them. June 28th - MEDC & 401(k) Plan Structure Overview – presented by Kate Blake, Senior Consultant Discussion of the Pentegra MEDC, what is means and how it works. July 12th – Maximizing Your 401(k) Contributions – presented by Ricardo Rodriguez, Education Consultant Review of the deferral options and approaches to building your account over time. July 26th – Understanding Your 401(k) Investments – presented Jose Ronquillo, Education Consultant More in depth discussion about Pentegra’s MEDC Option 1 platform focusing on diversification, portfolio maintenance as we move forward in our careers.
August 9th – Web Resource & Tool Review – presented by Ricardo Rodriquez, Education Consultant Information about the tools and resources available on the participant website. August 23rd – DB Cash Balance Plan Overview – presented by Kate Blake, Senior Consultant Learn about how the plan works, how benefits are calculated and distributed. September 6th – Thinking About Retirement – presented by Kate Blake, Senior Consultant Wrap up of the summer series tying all the pieces together to plan for retirement in the future. If you did not have the opportunity to join one of the live sessions or would like a refresher, the webinars have been recorded and are available on Sharepoint under the Human Resources tab under useful links (bottom right corner of the page). We’d like to thank the education and consulting team members for their valuable efforts!
PAGE 6
FALL 2019
THE PENTEGRA PULSE
Have You Seen Us In The News? Our public relations program continues to elevate Pentegra’s profile in the media and within the industry, showcasing our expertise and promoting our thought leadership. In addition to sending out regular press releases, we’re busy pitching blogs, articles and other news items to the media on a regular basis. You can see where we’ve been featured in the news on Pentegra’s website: www.pentegra.com/news/as-seen-in-the-news/
PAGE 7