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The Harleysville cultureHarleysville’s traditional culture Harleysville is a stable, professional organization, viewed by its employees as a good employer that provides good benefits and is concerned about its people. Harleysville employees possess an unusually strong work ethic, and have established a reputation for genuinely caring about their customers and doing a superior job. Collaboration, productivity and flexibility are traits that are evident throughout the organization. The work ethic is reinforced through the company’s policy to grant promotions based on merit, comprehensive professional development and training programs, and a strong emphasis on overall performance. Coupled with a strong work ethic, the Harleysville organization has a distinct moral infrastructure that embraces the values of integrity, honesty, loyalty, fairness and trust. These shared values have been perpetuated from the companies’ beginnings. Harleysville has always unflinchingly supported the Independent Agency System and the advantages this distribution system offers to consumers and insurance companies, particularly regional insurers. A key challenge going forward will be to continue to practice sound agency management—allocating our resources to our best agencies—to ensure the achievement of our corporate growth and profitability goals. A focus on employees At Harleysville, teamwork is a high priority at all levels. Management accessibility is visibly reinforced through first-name communications, an open door policy, and the "family feeling" created through ongoing contact between the companies’ officers and staff. Management strives to create a balance between autonomy and control at all levels of the organization. Employees are encouraged to grow and develop through participation in ongoing education programs. Harleysville has a comprehensive training program and the facilities to provide employees with opportunities to learn, as well as a pre-paid tuition program. The organization has an unusually high number of employees who attain professional designations each year. Many of these same employees have gained promotions through continuous self-improvement and serve as role models for other employees to emulate. Both industry and community service is highly encouraged—as reflected by the number of employees involved on major insurance industry association boards and committees, a longstanding reputation for providing leadership on major industry issues, the agenda of Harleysville’s very own "Care Force" (which serves hundreds of disadvantaged people every year), and support for the United Way and other charitable organizations. The cultures of acquired subsidiaries are compatible with Harleysville’s own culture. In fact, the feeling of goodwill that exists throughout the organization is epitomized by the universally famous "Smilie Button," which was actually invented by the Harleysville Worcester Insurance Company in 1965. One agent described the button as "the company’s mission statement." Maximizing investor value In addition to changes to our internal management structure that were made necessary by our long-term growth plans, a need for significant additional capital to fund acquisitions was also created. As a result, we decided to take the company public in 1986. At the same time, we created a new organizational structure to maximize the investor value of our franchise, while also supporting Harleysville’s long-term growth objectives. An ongoing objective is to ensure that employees understand and appreciate the benefits that can be reaped by this unique and complex corporate structure. To help create a better understanding of our organizational structure, as well as our strategies and corporate goals, management maintains a variety of "top-down" communications efforts. Important corporate goals are shared in a timely fashion with all operations so implementation steps can be taken to ensure that the goals are achieved. Important communications outlets include quarterly Town Hall meetings, Harleysville People, The Link—a companywide intranet—and special roundtable meetings designed for frontline employees to openly exchange opinions with members of senior management, without their own supervisors and managers in attendance. Challenges for the future We anticipate that our corporate culture will continue to evolve in response to changes in our industry, the needs of our work force and the population we serve, and the technology we employ. We will be challenged to develop new values and retool more traditional ones to meet new competitive challenges. As in the past, Harleysville will continue to build upon our reputation as being "Good people to know!"
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