Best Places to Work 2024 Awards
ENTERPRISE COMPANIES #1. AAA Northeast
Employees in R.I.: 1,342
CEO and President: John Galvin
INVESTMENTS IN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT at every level of AAA Northeast’s hierarchy, a focus on employee engagement with senior leadership and plenty of perks designed to improve workers’ lives outside of the office all contribute to the creation of an attractive and engaging culture at the Providence-based organization.
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AAA Northeast is part of the national network of motor clubs that offers 24-hour emergency road service, plus travel, insurance and financial services. AAA Northeast Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Ron Arigo says the company has a culture that starts with its mission-driven approach.
“Part of our values include helping and serving as a way of life, and specifically a way of work,” he said. “So that is integral and woven throughout our culture, including our approach to attracting our co-workers and developing and retaining them.”
Service, Arigo says, is also ingrained in the company culture. AAA Northeast is a membership organization and, as such, is focused on curating the best possible experience for members, he says.
Philosophically, AAA Northeast is striving to change its employees’ lives. Arigo says that transformative potential is the sign of a great company culture, setting it apart from simply a good one.
To enact that change, the company invests in its employees, starting from lowered tier positions and nonexempt workers. About 80% of the company’s 3,634 employees are nonexempt.
“We adopt a living wage. When you come in an entry-level role, we train you to know how to do your job in an exemplary manner,” he said. “When you do that job in an exemplary manner and you earn a reputation for being a tremendous co-worker, you can leverage that for the next role that likely earns you even more money so that you can care for yourself and your loved ones even better, and you’re more autonomous.”
Part of these investments include a program dubbed Accelerate, which helps build emerging leaders within the company. The company also hosts career exploration programs.
That drives retention. AAA Northeast Benefits and Human Resources Operations Manager Chelsie McMann says this is a metric in which the company has thrived in recent years. She says AAA Northeast saw both an increase in employee retention and a decrease in employee turnover from 2022 to 2023.
Volunteerism is a core tenet of AAA Northeast’s culture, which Arigo said also contributes toward bringing employees together. The company, he said, last year increased its “volunteer time off” in which employees now have six VTO days, five of which are afforded to each employee to work in the community volunteering, preferably as part of a team. The other day can be spent supporting a charity of their choice, Arigo says.
Arigo says the company also likes to promote and reward existing employees.
“We have worked hard and smart to craft a talent strategy that is an enabler of our talent to stay within our organization and improve their socioeconomic status,” Arigo said. “That said, we’re always open to welcoming new talent, which brings a new perspective of thought, diversity of thought.”
Part of the broader employee culture at AAA Northeast that informs the benefits offered to employees is a belief in families coming first. Some of those benefits include a commitment from the company to continuously absorb rising health care costs for its employees.
“For the past four years the cost of the health insurance has increased each year but instead of passing along that cost increase to employees, AAA Northeast has absorbed all the additional cost so the employees’ rates remained the same,” McMann said. “We were able to provide the same great plans and even make enhancements to the plan without impacting the cost for employees.”
AAA Northeast also provides rebates for employees to continue investing in personal and family wellness. For instance, the company offers a $250 rebate for fitness and weight management, and another $125 for mental health improvement.
