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Valerie F. attended our standard Vanguard orientation, but was transitioned to remote work after just two days in the office.
My manager told me, “I need you to be prepared to work at home.” A big aspect that really helped was being able to understand how to get the appropriate technology access needed for me to do my job virtually. I was able to get everything set up on my mobile device and for this reason, I was able to work from home immediately.
A few other items are worth noting. My manager was already prepared for the situation and had everything ready for me. All department resources were available online, which put me at ease. I was also able to network with my team and others, while they showed me the ropes virtually. I can call anyone, anytime on my laptop.
The situation was a little different for Mike M., who was one of the first crew members to go through a new onboarding process. He had originally received the typical new hire information, but instructions changed along with our new ways of working.
About a week after I received my job offer from Vanguard, the global environment changed. I was wondering what the impact would be and whether or not I would still be able to onboard as planned. I continued to receive normal communications and completed all steps in the pre-hire process.
I did, however, participate in a unique onboarding experience, where new crew came onto campus in small groups at designated times, and practiced social distancing throughout their two-hour orientation. We were provided with the equipment and information needed for a virtual set-up, and then returned home.
As a member of the IT department, Mike went through an IT-specific onboarding program the following day—all virtual.
Hiring manager Nima P. also felt that the onboarding experience was seamless.
Vanguard made it easy for me and my peers. Although I was unable to be on campus to welcome my new crew member, I talked to him the day before orientation. I told him once he was set up, to make sure everything worked before leaving campus. The day of, we spoke on the phone once he had all he needed before heading home. It was perfect.
Valerie and Mike feel integrated into their new teams and have been able to work productively from home.
Mike M.: From my experience, with the level of collaboration and inclusion, this new way of working does not appear to be an issue for crew. Vanguard places a real emphasis on ensuring employees feel connected.
Valerie F.: The team I’m working with has been very accommodating. They regularly check in on me. It’s really great. We meet virtually often and look for ways to drive engagement, collaboration and business results. To me, it doesn’t seem virtual because we see each other regularly. It feels normal.
Valerie also had some advice for those who are encountering this new work environment.
Keep actively learning. Broaden your network. Just because we’re virtual doesn’t mean you can’t talk to people on your floor. I had a video conference with someone that sits two desks over from me, and I’m looking forward to meeting him/her in person. To anyone looking to work at Vanguard, the company goes so far to make sure its clients are taken care of, but also does this with their crew. It’s amazing how much work we’ve been able to accomplish. I’ll look back years from now and think that it was pretty amazing.
Since interviewing these individuals, Vanguard has moved to a 100% virtual onboarding model for the foreseeable future.
Prepare as if your interview was in person
Master the technology
Control your environment
Don’t forget!
Tim Buckley: Greg, one of the questions that we’ve been getting from our clients is what are we doing around business continuity? What steps have we taken to make sure that regardless of how long the coronavirus goes on regards to how severe it gets that we can continue to keep the operations going? And now to our viewers out there, if you look behind me, what you’re looking at is one of our trading floors. Usually you’d see it densely populated. That doesn’t mean that people aren’t working out there when you just see people, every other desk or every third desk. It means that we’ve distanced them properly, and I should by the way mentioned that you’ll notice a Greg and I are sitting apart here. We’re trying to practice social distancing and everything that we do. Beyond, social distancing, what are you guys doing? What steps have you taken to make sure this operation continues? How have you distributed your team?
Greg Davis: So it starts really with the fact that hey, it’s a global operation so we have trading locations in the US, trading locations in the UK as well as Melbourne, Australia. And in addition to those global trading locations, we also have contingency sites that we’re leveraging right now in each one of those locations. So we have our team split up between our main hubs and those contingency sites, and we’ve even prepared for the fact that if we need to, our people could trade from home. So we’ve installed the technology, we’ve tested the system, so we could have business as usual, even in a severe event.
Tim: And trading from home is not something you are going to jump to. I mean you guys love the collaboration that happens on the floor even when people are spread out. It’s just much easier to happen there. That said, if we have to go there, we absolutely ready to do it.
Greg: Absolutely.
Tim: Security is going to be the same absolutely whether if someone’s at home as it’s going to be the same if we’re trading from home, as if you’re trading from here.
Greg: Absolutely.
Tim: Now, I should mention Greg that the rest of Vanguard’s operations, whether they’re talking to an associate at Vanguard, whatever area of Vanguard is supporting the client, those areas have been distributed too. That we have taken steps to move associates apart. Moving between different buildings. People are working from home. They are distributed between our sites as well so. We’re taking the steps to make sure that we continue business as usual here or as close to as usual as possible
Greg: Absolutely.
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For as long as I can remember, receiving quality education has been a priority in my household. I spent countless hours at my parents’ dining room table working on homework. Even now, my mom regularly tries to convince my 4-year-old son to work on spelling games at the same table. I feel very fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to work with the West Philadelphia Action for Early Learning (AFEL) to help instill this imperative into the children of that community. The organization has two main goals: kindergarten readiness and reading on grade level by the third grade. My colleagues and I were able to support these goals by preparing resource bags for use in classrooms and reading to some of the children from local schools. Beyond the crew that were able to attend, crew from across Vanguard donated over 250 books to help children build their home libraries.
The specific group that supported AFEL is the Vanguard Black Professional Network (VBPN), which is committed to increasing engagement of black crew members and supporting the increased representation of black crew in leadership positions. Having the opportunity to serve with aligned crew in a community that may produce the future of Vanguard leadership was truly a humbling experience.
— Josh C.
VBPN sponsored two MLK Days of Service events in North Carolina at Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina and Classroom Central. Second Harvest is responsible for supplying food throughout a 19-county region of North and South Carolina through a network of over 700 emergency pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters and programs for low-income children and seniors. Crew members took time out of their Saturday to help inspect and sort donated food items for distribution to those partner agencies. Classroom Central equips students in need by collecting and distributing free school supplies to their teachers. Eleven Vanguard crew members assisted the organization by die cutting shapes and organizing the overflow of school supplies in the warehouse.
— Ebony B. and Sabrina B.
As a North Caroline VBPN site lead, giving back is extremely important to me. It’s such a rewarding and humbling experience. I’ve been with Vanguard for 21 years and our commitment to our community has never wavered. It is an amazing differentiator, and providing Days of Service so crew can work together to help others is so empowering. As we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black History Month, this resonates with me even more. His commitment to service and helping others was powerful and a major driver in the movement. To be able to not only serve, but honor him and his sacrifice, is humbling. To me, this is what our purpose is about; loving and helping others, and extending your hand to pull others up. That is what service is really about.
— Kenya H.
I am a helper by nature and have enjoyed volunteering for many organizations and causes since childhood. I recently had the opportunity to coordinate an MLK Days of Service volunteer event on behalf of VBPN at Feed My Starving Children (FMSC). FMSC is a non-profit organization that assists in providing rice, soy, dried vegetables, and vitamins and minerals to needy children locally and internationally. Through donations and the efforts of volunteers, FMSC is able to ensure the food is packaged and expedited to hungry kids. On the day of our volunteer event, I was immediately impressed with the FMSC staff. We were warmly greeted and provided with instructions to prepare us for the day.
I appreciated that the FMSC staff emphasized a hygienic environment to ensure the children were not exposed to germs, and we watched a video that included detailed instructions for each food prep station. The staff kept the event light by teaching us fun chants to say when each prep station was able to completely fill a box with food packages. The staff shared with the volunteers that it costs $88.00 to feed one needy child, ALL year! As a parent of two teenagers, that resonated with me. On average, it costs my family more than $88.00 per week in meals. During our volunteer session, we were able to fill 192 boxes with food packages, which will feed 113 children in Thailand and provide 41,472 meals!
When I volunteer, I feel that I benefit from the experience in so many ways. I get to share in the experience with fellow crew and members in our community that also volunteer their time. Volunteering helps me appreciate how fortunate we are and reminds me that by simply providing our time, we are making an impact. A thank you note I once received after donating my time included an impactful quote that sums up my volunteer journey:
“Help one another. There’s no time like the present
and no present like your time.” —James Durst
— Veronica A.
Early roots
Ever since I could remember, my parents consistently instilled in my siblings and me the belief that “it’s always better to give than to receive.” One way my parents demonstrated this belief was to participate in a variety of community service events throughout the course of year. When I think back to those events, my mind is instantly flooded with positive memories, and many stemmed from our annual participation in a sponsor-a-child program. I vividly recall as a young child walking up to the Christmas tree at my family’s church to select a “wish kid,” typically a young girl close to my age, for whom I could help ensure her holiday was just as joyous as my own.
Branching out to Vanguard
In 2011, prior to receiving my undergraduate degree and launching into the professional world, I searched determinedly for an employer who was both well regarded in the financial services industry and also demonstrated a strong sense of commitment to community service—a trait central to my own personal values. Luckily, I did not have to look far from the Philadelphia region to find Vanguard, a company with many community stewardship programs that were positively impacting their local communities. One program in particular caught my eye, given the close significance to my childhood memories: Vanguard’s Giving Season.
Seeding more Santa helpers
Fast forward to 2019, I share with enthusiasm that I have participated in the Giving Season at Vanguard each of the last eight years, and that I have been joined by my members of my soccer team. Outside of Vanguard, you can find me on countless soccer fields as a female youth soccer coach for a local Philadelphia club. While I don’t have a specific number of games or tournaments I set out to win, I do have one very specific goal—positively impact as many young girls in the surrounding Philadelphia area, both on and off the field, as possible. I feel that it is my unspoken duty to use my personal experiences and leadership skills as a platform to help influence the lives of my players. I want to make my players better people, not just better athletes.
During each Giving Season, I volunteer my time by signing up to shop for 20 kids who have been sponsored by Vanguard crew, and each of my players has her own child to shop for. My team and I will venture to the local Target and begin a shopping frenzy. I’d describe it as organized chaos, but thankfully I have a group of soccer moms who assist in the process! Overall, my team has an absolute blast while learning the same lesson my parents taught me—“it’s always better to give than to receive.” The best part? When they begin asking if our team will be shopping for children in need again next year.
When I was a young kid, I wanted to be the Incredible Hulk. However, my desire to be a super hero was different than that of my friends at school because of one small nuance: I spent time with Hulk. I knew that he woke up at 5:00am every morning to do cardio, and some days I would join him. I knew that he liked to put black pepper on almost everything he ate. I had the opportunity most evenings to watch him lift weights, and WOW! He was strong. And the green paint? Well, that was just for television and public appearances. You see I lived with the Incredible Hulk… he was my dad.
I have a vivid memory of when I was about five years old: My father (a.k.a. Hulk) was doing bench press in the basement, and I could hear his exhale with each rep. And then it stopped. Next came a struggled yell for help, followed by my mother running down the stairs in a panic, and then two incredibly loud thuds. My mother helped him dump the weights. And for the first time in my life, I realized that everyone, even a super hero, needs help sometimes.
Your career is no different. Neither is mine. We all need help. I recently completed a fun exercise: I listed as many people as I could think of that have helped me in my 15 year career. In about 10 minutes, I wrote down the names of 94 people, and I could have kept going. The old saying is true, sometimes it does take a village! Among these individuals, there are a few who have had the greatest impact on my career due to their willingness to serve as my mentors. In keeping with the theme of seeking help, I’ve asked two of them, Vanguard senior leaders Marissa Blank and Steve Holman, to come alongside me to construct a guide on how to establish a strong mentorship relationship.
I may never actually become the Incredible Hulk and save the world, but that’s okay… becoming someone’s mentor and positively impacting their life is just as fulfilling. In this season of giving, let’s show thanks to those who have helped us by committing to help others in their career.