On a recent Friday, all the financial advisers, managers and other “team members” at Oceanstate Financial Services sat down for a potluck lunch at the firm’s East Providence office. And it wasn’t an isolated event – the approximately 55 Rhode Island employees get together like that every month.
“I’ve been in this business for 30 years,” said Anne Alix, who processes new client applications and started with the company in 2006. “And I would not want to be anywhere but in this office. It’s a very relaxed, but very busy atmosphere.”
Ronald Kashmanian, a financial adviser who has been with the company since 2003, agreed. “It’s something of a corporate atmosphere with a family touch.”
Along with the potluck meals is definitely a lot of hard work, Office Manager Ann Schwartz said. “I can say with confidence that we are the most successful [financial advisory] firm in the state.”
Case managers, such as the ones Alix works with, handle about 300 cases at a time. At many other firms, case managers handle about 75 pending cases at any time, Schwartz said. “So when we interviewed [Alix], she said, ‘I like to work hard.’ And I said, ‘Be careful what you wish for.’ ”
Alix added, “She’s right, I’ve never worked this hard.”
And the link, between the hard work and sociable atmosphere has attracted many “career changers” to Oceanstate Financial, Schwartz said.
“They have backgrounds ranging from retail, to medical to accounting,” Schwartz said. “Our infrastructure is unique in allowing them to transfer to us and know that they’ll have support” to learn the profession.
That “infrastructure” is an “upside down” organizational chart,” where the case managers are beholden to the advisers, helping them with paperwork and keeping them up to date, she said.
The firm has been in Rhode Island since September 2003. It is a branch of Baystate Financial Services, which has been in Boston since 1901. David C. Porter purchased the company in 1996 and later opened the Providence office.
Through tax planning, wealth management and other financial services, the company is in “the business of helping clients accumulate and grow their wealth for retirement-planning purposes or for education-funding purposes,” Kashmanian said. “We also assist in the estate planning to help preserve wealth for the next generation.”
Kashmanian, who joined Oceanstate in 2004, has been in the financial-services business since 1984, when he earned a post-graduate degree at what is now Bryant University. He worked for another firm for more than a decade and then started searching for a new position. “I and two associates did a pretty comprehensive search of broker-dealers and Baystate Financial, David Porter’s organization, was one of the last we talked with,” Kashmanian said. “They have a very attractive, deep and supportive infrastructure here.”
And at first Kashmanian was worried that there would be too much interference because of Oceanstate’s large staff, legal counsel, tax specialists and life insurance specialists. “It’s interesting,” Kashmanian said, “because this vast infrastructure actually caused me and my associates to pause a little bit.”
But now, he said, relying on Oceanstate’s staff for those services is a load off his mind.
Some Oceanstate employees work compressed workweeks, Schwartz added, while others telecommute, allowing for flexibility in their scheduling to deal with personal matters.
“You do have that ability to make your own schedule,” Kashmanian said. “Some people, depending on the time that they’re at in their life can work three or four days a week – others are very corporately or individually driven and prefer to work more.”
Most of the associates are financial advisers who work on a commission basis. For staff, the company has a monthly bonus program based on agency revenue. Job sharing is also allowed in some cases.
Other benefits include corporate discounts and gym reimbursements through health insurance. Childcare and medical flexible-spending accounts are also offered.
Turnover is low, likely due in part to the encouraging and sociable atmosphere, Kashmanian said, adding that new employees “are assimilated very quickly.”
Schwartz added that the “old-style” financial office – what you’d see just a few decades ago – had a deep divide between the new-business department – where Alix works – and the advisers. “They weren’t allowed to cross that divide,” she said. “And here, I think what surprises individuals that join us is that it is very common to come here at lunch time and find us all sitting together and having a few laughs. It’s very unique.” •
