by Don Lowman, Towers Perrin
Today (February 13) marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of Towers Perrin. It is hard to believe, but I was also here for the celebration of the firm’s 50th anniversary.
And I just did some quick calculations to determine that on March 19 of this year I will have officially spent exactly half of my entire life working for Towers Perrin! And to think that I told the guy who hired me back in 1982 that I would probably only be here for two or three years and then go work for a client.
People inside and outside of the firm started asking me about 10 years ago why I have stayed here so long — and no, it’s not because no one else ever offered me a job, or that one or two clients didn’t test the waters with me or vice versa. No, there are three main reasons that I have stayed here, and each of them are equally important — and if any one of them had been missing, I have no doubt that I would have gone missing too.
The three reasons are:
1. I have always been surrounded by amazingly gifted colleagues.
2. I have gotten to work with the senior leaders of some of the most interesting companies in the world.
3. I have had bosses who believed in me and who were willing to take risks and let me try different roles every three to five years.
Not surprisingly, all of these factors are related directly or indirectly to some of the top 10 drivers of employee engagement and retention around the world (and readers of our book will recognize which ones they are). There have been times when I felt a little disengaged and a couple of times I seriously considered leaving. But each of those times I decided to stay and I have never regretted those decisions.
Most of the times that I came to a career crossroads, I had the benefit of a trusted mentor who helped me think through the options and remind me of what makes our firm a pretty unique place to be. I really love Towers Perrin. I believe in our mission, vision and values. I have enormous respect for our clients and our people. I am very proud of the brand that our firm enjoys around the world and the respect that we have in the market. And I know that each one of us at the firm contributes to that brand every day with the interactions we have with our clients and each other.
I have worked pretty tirelessly over all these years to try to make the firm better, and not because of any personal reward, but because it felt rewarding to see the results of my efforts and those of my various teams. In our own parlance, I have to say that I feel “fully engaged.”
We just did our own employee engagement survey a few months ago and we were delighted to see that engagement levels at Towers Perrin have risen since 2006 (the last year we conducted the survey), and are generally above those of other professional services firms and a broad group of high-performance companies. Those high marks reflect my own views of what it feels like to be a part of this company.
We have areas for improvement, and our celebration of the strong results soon turned to a focus on the actions we can take to improve in the areas where we felt we came up short. We are probably a little too self-critical at times, but it does help us continually identify ways to get better.
So today we wish Towers Perrin another Happy Birthday. I may not be employed here when the firm turns 100, but I will always hold this firm in the highest regard and celebrate my original decision to come here — and each subsequent decision not to leave.
For more about our 75th Anniversary, click here.
- Don
One Comment
Don,
This is great. Wow, half of your life with the same company. Now that is employee engagement. And still singing the company’s praises, too.
Kudos to both you and Towers Perrin.
Thanks for a great read.
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[...] Don Lowman, who is Managing Director of the Human Capital Group in Towers Perrin recently wrote on his blog about how he has spent half his life working at [...]