Invest in People who Invest in You

At EPM, one of our leading fundamentals is to deliver superfan service. We expect our team to bring that WOW factor to our consumers every day. It's more than providing loans; it's all about the experience. Our goal is not just to have satisfied clients but to turn them into raving fans.

Superfan service has to be delivered authentically and consistently. It has to be our true standard modeled by hundreds of employees. It's vital to our organization to remember who is delivering that amazing service and turn them into superfans of EPM. To really bring our people on board to deliver our mission and vision every day, they also need to be wildly impressed and excited about their experience at EPM.

The saying is: Invest in people who invest in you. Being part of the EPM team is a huge investment. We have high expectations and push people to be better every day. It's on us as leaders to motivate and inspire them to keep that train rolling. 

Especially this past year, the leadership at EPM took great strides to invest in our people. We're helping them develop their skills and evolve so they can always be improving. 

Change and improvement starts from within

There are many simultaneous methods of delivery for the positive changes going on at EPM. Be it building physical health, mental health, personal and professional development, or emotional intelligence, they all lead to stronger overall well being and satisfaction.

Here are some of the big changes we have made to invest in our team:

• We started the GO365 initiative, which has been so successful that we brought the overall BMI down for the company and have brought our health insurance rates down by over 20%
• We started virtual zoom workouts that we offer for free daily. And we opened a gym right in our home office in Atlanta that's accessible to any team member throughout the day.
• We upgraded the workstations to bring us into the future - with a sleek, modern look. Every workstation also has the capability of being a standing desk. 
• We rearranged the seating in the home office so that departments are mixed together. We found that teams communicate in new types of ways that don't require them to be sitting together to accomplish great work. But with this arrangement, employees can problem solve in new ways. 

We value and encourage diversity of thought - truly having to compromise or see a problem from a new angle allows for innovation. The people beside each other may not be in the same department, but seeing each other's process will help see their own process in a new light.

• This past month we launched Empower Hour Live! As an hour of enrichment from an interview-style presentation with thought leaders. 
• We hired a wellness coordinator to offer free counseling sessions in-person or virtually. 
• We have a digital library and a physical library for employees to check books out and read at their own leisure. 
• We invested in an underwriting certification series through the EPM+ initiative and adding a communications certification in March with Brittany Hodak.
• We also invested in professional development for our leaders with the coaches from The EPM Exchange and beyond to help us stay on track with our mission and vision and roll it out to others. Coaches who will be guiding us include Janine Driver, Christine Beckwith, Dr. Wheda Carletos, and Michael Allosso.

There are a ton of ways to measure the success that EPM has experienced. From our growth in numbers, in revenue, and in personal wellness and development, we all come down to the way we invested in our people. And that directly reflects how they invest back into EPM by bringing their best every day and bringing superfan service to our loans.