While in service industries like mortgage lending a lot of attention is paid to providing a strong customer experience, many of this year’s Best Mortgage Companies to Work for put an emphasis on employee engagement.
That is important especially after issues around profitability and capacity resulted in massive consolidation during 2023 and to this day.
Those conditions contributed to just 33 companies appearing on this year’s listing, as opposed to 48 for 2023.
READ ALSO: Best Mortgage Companies to Work For 2023
This ranking is a partnership between National Mortgage News and the Best Companies Group, which conducts extensive employee surveys and reviews employer reports on benefits and policies. The employee survey covers eight topics: leadership and planning; corporate culture and communications; role satisfaction; work environment; relationship with supervisor; training, development and resources; pay and benefits; and overall engagement.
Once the survey data is analyzed, the companies get a score that decides their ranking. The overall score is calculated using the employee survey (weighed at 75%) and the employer questionnaire (25%). To qualify for consideration, organizations with 25 or more employees need a minimum response rate of 40% while companies with 25 or fewer employees need 80%.
SEE ALSO: Best Mortgage Companies to Work For 2022
The survey addressed several topics, including overall engagement the staff had with the management of the companies that employed them. The positive response rate to the statement, “I am willing to give extra effort to help this organization succeed” was 97% for lenders of all sizes that made the list.
But that was down from 98% in 2023.
The overall engagement score of 93% was a 3 percentage point decline from the prior year. Yet in speaking with several companies on the list, as well as reviewing some survey responses from the lenders themselves, engagement is what helped them to power through what many consider to be an all-time bad year for home lending.
SEE ALSO: Best Mortgage Companies to Work For 2021
