PGIM Boosts Analyst Retention and Networking Through High-Energy Team Building Events

Anthony Vaccarino (00:00) So teambonding is second to none. I've used a lot of vendors for activities in the past for team building and camaraderie, but there's no better firm out there in terms of how strong the facilitators are at creating an energy and an excitement in the room for any session that they're doing. The cost is very reasonable. I've probably worked with about five vendors and none of them are close to how strong teambonding has been. So, it's great that you guys have a wide geographical reach as well, not just here in the Northeast, you can go anywhere wherever, it's needed. So highly recommend team bonding to any firm out there that needs to build chemistry across their employees with the wide variety of sessions that you guys offer. Hello, my name is Anthony Vaccarino. I am the director for early talent programs for P-Gym, and P-Gym is the asset management arm for Prudential Financial in New Jersey. we have about 65 analysts in our rotational programs here at P-Gym. And for part of my role, retention is a very big focus. So one of my strategies is a lot of very fun networking and social events that we sprinkle in throughout the year. every single one of these quarterly events, we pick a different theme or vendor that we bring in, And I've used team bonding several different times. Great reviews, And the feedback was raving across the board on team bonding. So the three sessions that we've done over the last year have been the "In It To Win it," the "ice sculpting" and then we recently did the "corporate family feud" a few weeks ago. And our analysts love the more fun, you know, social events where it's more interactive and they get to spend time together. So the main focus was definitely retention and making sure it's a great and fun program experience for them. So the energy of the facilitators is definitely the #1 reason. as I've spoken to other vendors - because I did cross compare teambonding with others, you know, before I used teambonding for the first time, but I could definitely tell from the organizers and all the people that I work with over there shout out to Jenna Gould. She's great. She's been very helpful for me in terms of the sessions that we've done. the presenters are extremely energetic. I could tell that they care a lot. They make it so much more fun for the people participating. And I think costs are very reasonable as well with how intricate and detailed the events are, which is one data point, but always an important one for any company, while weighing options like this. So cost is fair, vendors are extremely energetic, the variety of sessions that are offered is also amazing. I couldn't believe as I was scrolling on the website, how much different things that teambonding offers. And when I see really exciting things like that, it makes me more and more eager to keep coming back to teambonding for sure. so for the "ice sculpting" one specifically, I think everybody had something so different with the sculpture that they were trying to craft. I think that was definitely a very fun memory of just hearing the anecdotes of what people were making up. the creativeness of the facilitators is second to none each of our sessions that we've done have been great. And I'm excited in January, because we're going to be using the "Squid Game" session for an upcoming networking social. So definitely people are clamoring for us to do more things like that because they very much appreciate the camaraderie that it builds. I think because these events bring people together from multiple departments to do these activities together, it spawns new friendships and new networking. And I can see that just from people that start talking more after the event is over. And I also think people that aren't in our analyst programs are jealous when they walk by and they see what we're doing in this huge room with this fun vendor. it's definitely new friendships, it's also like free marketing. for these other parts of the firm that want to work here now because they see all the fun activities that we do specifically in P-Gym.