Iowans care about people, and the state’s businesses and industries make it a priority to invest in programs and policies that allow their employees to thrive inside and outside the workplace. Through supporting working mothers, homeless individuals and veterans and setting people up for success in every way, it’s no surprise that Iowa ranks #3 in the U.S. for opportunity (U.S. News & World Report, 2022).
Putting People First
Located outside Cedar Rapids in the tiny town of Norway, Frontier Co-op’s philosophy that “Doing Good, Works” is baked into their business culture. The distributor of spices and wellness botanicals has remained true to its “hippie roots” and supports its roughly 550 employees in multiple ways.
“Our ‘Doing Good, Works’ mission has a straight line, a tangible ROI that I’m really proud of,” CEO Tony Bedard said. “Every employee understands the role that they play in our success, and our success means our scale of good gets greater.”
While other companies may struggle to hire as they expand, Frontier has created innovative workforce solutions to help employees overcome common workplace barriers while staying true to their core values. They approach the recruitment process with a more comprehensive outlook and find ways to set their employees up for success both inside and outside the workplace.
Frontier’s employee amenities like on-site subsidized child care, school bus pick-up and drop-off, an organic café, transportation and various internship and employee assistance programs work together to support a flourishing workforce that includes generations of families.
Shelly Huxford manages Frontier’s child care center, which she herself utilized when her daughter Hannah was growing up. Now, Hannah also works in the child care center and gets to experience the same joy of bringing her daughter to work.
“It’s a huge stress-reliever for employees to be able to come in and have wraparound care provided [for their child],” said Megan Schulte, Frontier’s vice president of human resources. “As a new parent myself, I love being able to come to this child care and not have to worry about where I was going to take my kids and not having that stress as I was trying to figure out motherhood in general.”
The company’s people-focused practices have earned accolades, including a national designation as a Best Place for Working Parents. Additionally, Frontier’s strong policies around environmental Norway stewardship and supporting its world-wide suppliers helps employees to connect to the company’s mission on a personal level.
“I have a saying at [employee orientation],” Tony said. “Obviously, you come here for the pay and the benefits, but at the end of the day, your work also enabled us to dig a well, open a school or feed some kids halfway around the world.”
Frontier Co-op’s Breaking Down Barriers to Employment program also plays a role in changing employees’ lives. It assists former inmates, immigrants or employees experiencing homelessness through skills training and apprenticeships. The program can also help workers overcome transportation challenges they may have.
“Frontier has changed my life,” said Alisia Weaver, a former inmate who now works as a Frontier operator. “I was homeless before I started working here, and with the program’s transportation and child care, my life’s completely changed. I now have my own place, my own transportation and I get to come to work with my son every day.”
Leveraging Transferable Skills
As another company with global impact, John Deere also boasts life-changing programs for its employees. The agricultural equipment manufacturer prioritizes supporting professional “second acts,” including veterans who are returning to civilian life.
Through a partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense’s SkillBridge Program, John Deere began offering retiring service members an opportunity to learn the industry and make the transition as easy as possible by allowing them to work with the company during the last six months of their military service.
“It’s an incredibly fulfilling program to have in place, and we’re seeing great candidates come out of this,” said David Ottavianelli, John Deere’s workforce and community development director, who is a former service member himself. He recognizes plenty of transferable skills between military service and many positions at different levels within the company.
BJ Keating benefited from the program when preparing to leave the National Guard. He joined the military at 17, went full-time at 27 and spent the rest of his career moving between Georgia, Washington D.C., Iowa and Alabama with his family. When retirement approached, he built his dream home in Alabama, where he had been stationed for several years. Then, while watching a farming YouTube series with his family, his son recommended that his dad work at John Deere.
The next day, that quirky comment stuck with BJ as he began searching for veteran-friendly jobs. As an Iowa native, he requested information about manufacturing positions in John Deere’s Dubuque, Quad Cities and Ankeny locations, and just weeks later he set off for a 12-week John Deere internship in the Quad Cities. This temporary experience gave BJ a yearning to be closer to family in Iowa, and he returned to Alabama with a plan to talk to his kids about making the move.
“John Deere opened the door and let me come in and see the facility, meet the person I’d be working with; that initial connection made me want to pursue it,” BJ said. “I called my wife a couple weeks in and said, ‘I can’t go back [to Alabama].’”
Throughout the moving process, BJ discovered Home Base Iowa (HBI), a government-based program that connects veterans and their spouses with career opportunities and provides educational resources and relocation assistance in partnership with more than 100 HBI communities across the state. The program helped him find his new home in Eldridge, which is almost identical to his Alabama dream home. Now, he works full-time as a team leader in production and volunteers with SkillBridge and the Quad Cities Veterans Group to help other veterans discover their own civilian careers.
HBI’s support extends to military-affiliated students through partnerships with nearly 30 colleges and universities in its Certified Higher Academic Military Partners program to assist them in overcoming potential roadblocks to achieving success. Transitioning service members and their families can also access the state’s largest jobs bank, IowaWORKS, to upload their resumes and launch the next phase of their career.
Crafting a Dream Team
Fintech superstar VizyPay also takes a people-centric route to growing its company and workforce. Started in 2017 by California native Austin Mac Nab, VizyPay helps small businesses eliminate or greatly reduce credit card processing fees. He moved to Iowa to join the state’s impressive fintech industry and tap into the state’s unmatched affordability, support for entrepreneurs and strong talent pool with a specific goal of supporting businesses in rural communities and creating a diverse team.
“Iowa has hardworking individuals,” Austin said. “Most people think we’re some tiny little state, but we have plenty of business amenities, and this is a great place to raise your family. We have a great school system, and it’s the kind of place where we can create a company culture that attracts people.”
Going against the grain of the typical technology company, VizyPay’s hiring practices focus less on experience and expertise, and more on people’s journeys and hunger to learn. As a result, 95% of its employees had little to no experience in the fintech space and were taught from scratch, mirroring the company’s own humble beginnings.
Instead of reviewing applicants’ college degrees or resumes, Austin focuses on asking about the prospective employees’ childhood and relationships with family and friends to learn more about their character. This method has attracted over 100 employees who bring a diverse set of experiences, backgrounds and strengths to VizyPay’s team. Austin has personally interviewed each team member, and attributes the company’s creativity and innovation to its workforce’s ability to be who they are.
During Akilah Anders’ interview, she was shocked to see Austin throw her resume away and instead ask about her goals, professional and personal, and why she was seeking a change in her career. She had been working in medical administration for almost eight years before she applied for a sales partner recruiter position at VizyPay.
Though she had zero recruiting experience, Akilah learned on the job and, within just six months, earned the role of brand specialist. Fast forward another three months, her hard work resulted in another promotion.
“VizyPay has a strong people-first culture that comes with lots of opportunities for career advancements,” Akilah said.
“They saw I was a high performer, and I was promoted to a senior role on the marketing team,” said Akilah, now a senior brand specialist. “All things I never thought possible because I didn’t have a degree.”
Along with its unique hiring and on-the-job learning practices, VizyPay also maintains close relationships with Iowa’s colleges and universities, which play a major role in advancing entrepreneurship and launching and growing startups. The University of Iowa, Iowa State University, University of Northern Iowa, North Iowa Area Community College and Drake University house John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Centers, which create a pipeline of diverse talent.
Discovering Iowa’s Assets
John Melvin knows all too well that the perfect job opportunity justifies taking a leap of faith. He had been enjoying a decades-long career as an insurance investment officer on the East Coast but keeping close tabs on Iowa’s impressive insurance industry and connecting with Des Moines area’s Sammons Financial Group had him considering a cross-country move.
After Sammons Financial invited John for his first-ever visit to Iowa, the company’s emphasis on growing the industry’s next generation through internship programs like Insure Your Future inspired him to take the next step in his career and leave Greenwich, Connecticut, behind.
“The combination of the great company and opportunity here, as well as the ease and livability of the community, all seemed to work,” John said.
Iowa’s “open for business” policies helped John plug into the community, both professionally and personally. Networking events like Des Moines’ Global Insurance Symposium connected him to a strong pool of talent and allowed him to grow in his career. Now, he’s an unlikely poster child for other East Coasters considering a career here.
“I’m a bit of a unicorn,” John said. “People say, ‘You moved to Iowa from Connecticut at that stage in your career? How did that go?’ But then they reflect on the fact that they’ve heard that [Iowa] is a really great place to live. I think that word is getting out.”
After taking the time to find the right neighborhood, John and his wife decided to rent a condo on Ingersoll Avenue, which is a popular cultural and entertainment district. There, they formed friendships with local restaurant owners, who helped the couple discover an off-market historic home nearby.
Now, they’re renovating a 1930s brick Georgian home that’s within walking distance of the Des Moines Art Center, where John’s wife has already begun to get involved. John’s short commute also frees up time for him to practice his putting at the Des Moines Golf and Country Club.
“[In central Iowa] you can do anything within 10 minutes,” John said.
“The quality of employers is also high… and here, there’s mobility of the workforce, John said. “There’s really no other concentration of life insurance companies like we have here in Des Moines.”
As Iowa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem continues to expand, even industries as ingrained as insurance are benefiting from fresh ideas and energy. Iowa is home to the Global Insurance Accelerator and Global Insurance Symposium, two initiatives that attract attention from an international audience. More than 7,000 finance and insurance companies operate here, which creates incomparable access to industry leaders and knowledge.
And, through the groundbreaking Insure Your Future program, college students gain real-world experience in Iowa’s insurance industry. In its inaugural summer, more than 60 undergraduates benefited from rotational internships, leadership development workshops and scholarship opportunities from the Iowa Insurance Hall of Fame.
