Brighton Securities turns ideas into action
Seasoned and younger employees help drive decisions here.
By the nature of their work, financial-service firms like Brighton Securities deal with numbers. So we’ll let Brighton Securities CEO Jai Ramachandran bandy about some numbers.
“The average age of a financial advisor is 55 across the country,” he said. “Ours are 42. One-third of our workforce started their career at Brighton Securities. Ten percent of our workforce has been here 20-plus years. A couple have been here for 30-plus years.”
All those numbers added up to Brighton Securities ranking first in this year’s D&C Digital Top Workplaces list of small employers. The firm, founded in 1969 and with a main office on Monroe Avenue, has a team of seasoned and younger employees who make up what Ramachandran called the best advisors in the area.
Want more figures? Try these: Brighton Securities received 200 résumés last year but only hired one employee. Doug Hendee, the chief sales officer, screens all the résumés and said it’s hard to find the right “fit.”
“It sounds like a cliché, but it’s like a family here,” he said. “We’re very selective. I’ve interviewed people who are knowledgeable about financial terms, but to me, that’s secondary to being able to connect with a prospect. The ideal candidate has to have the ability to make a connection … That personal quality is what’s going to get you business.”
But what factors into being named a Top Workplace? For Brighton Securities, it comes down to an open-door policy, involving all employees in decisions that affect them, and implementing ideas from employees, Ramachandran said.
The firm has a three-year program that involves trainees getting paid to study for their licensing and offers support in finding clients and coaching through meetings. Brighton Securities is also rolling out an “education plan” and has increased the number of health care programs offered to employees.
Those kinds of things matter if you want to be considered a “top workplace,” Ramachandran said.
“It’s easy to buy everyone lunch once in a while,” he said. “It’s really hard to have a workplace where people really want to come to work every day … We are entirely employee-owned. We always have the focus on what’s best for the company, and the company is the employees.”
As financial-services companies do, Brighton Securities offers services in areas like financial planning, estate planning, setting personal-investment strategies, tax implications and — as a blanket term — corporate services. The bottom line is getting the most bang for your buck.
Chief sales officer Hendee said the company has taken on a more comprehensive approach in recent years. For most clients, planning for retirement is just one goal. Paying for college or leaving an estate to heirs are others, and the goals are intrinsically tied together.
“If you’re doing this right, the minute [clients] get something financial in the mail or whatever, the first person that they’re going to call is you,” Hendee said. “It truly solidifies your role as the financial planner with the client when your client has pretty much disclosed everything about their finances. You tell us everything, and we’ll give you back a good model for getting to your goal.”
There’s a correlation there to a buzzword that Brighton Securities favors — “transparency” — that helps make Brighton Securities a top workplace.
“All of us are trying to convey, ‘We’re all in this together,’ ” Hendee said.
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