The management and staff at Rhodes & Williams Insurance Brokers are very proud to have been profiled by local staffing company, The Pollack Group.

"Our first rule," says Kristy McDougall, HR Manager at Rhodes & Williams Insurance, "Is Families First. I should explain that though. We have our own 'home family' - which always comes first - and then we have the Rhodes Family." The Rhodes & Williams team is so close that this great philosophy appears to have come about quite naturally. Special events at Rhodes include the home families, issues at home are taken seriously, and no one questions if someone has to take time off to deal with matters at home. Nothing illustrates this more than the day we had a huge snow storm. The President, the VP and the entire sales team pushed cars out of snow banks in the parking lot to make sure that every staff member could get out and home safely. "That's the kind of team we have." says Mary Raymond, Office Manager. She and Ms. McDougall work hard to maintain an exact fit when they hire - choosing candidates with great ability, but only if they are going to mesh well with the rest of the team.

This kind of atmosphere gets talked about. Ottawa is too small a community to keep an industry secret like "Where's a great place to work?" "Rhodes & Williams competes locally, nationally and globally," explains Ms McDougall, "without rigid borders - there's more flexibility and entrepreneurial spirit than is typical in most insurance firms." This capability allows them to write more business, their ethical and upfront dealings with clients gives them a stainless reputation and their stellar customer service cements Rhodes & Williams as the broker of choice for customers.

In 2007, Rhodes & Williams entered the Employee Choice Awards. The main reason was not to win the award, but because the process of entering gave them the opportunity to survey employees anonymously, initiate a formal process to examine how they work with employees and to learn how they could improve. In 2008, as a result of new initiatives, Rhodes & Williams placed in the top 10. This commitment to employees is reinforced many ways including their focus on health (part of their "family first" philosophy), manager nominated employee awards (condo time-share), and the attitude that starts with Rhodes & Williams President, Trent Young, who says, "We have the best group of employees in the city."

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