100 offices, a strong macro culture

How can a firm whose 650 employees are scattered among 100 offices in 20 states create a consistently positive culture?

“It’s been a journey,” says Ben Roth, who founded Roth Staffing in Newport Beach, Calif., in 1994 and today is its chairman. “We wanted to create something that was different and better, something that accomplished a broader social responsibility.”

The way the firm has accomplished that is by having a “macro culture” for the overall organization, and within that, “micro cultures” in each office, he says. “It’s all about the congruence between the macro culture and the micro culture. We equip our local managers with the right tools to be able to optimize engagement with their coworkers.”

Roth Staffing Companies is actually a family of staffing firms with different specialties: Ultimate Staffing Services, the original company, which provides office, administrative and clerical staff; Ledgent Finance & Accounting, a finance and accounting staffing and executive search firm; Ledgent Technology, an IT staffing firm; Adams & Martin Group, a legal staffing firm; About Talent, a managed service provider; and Ultimate Locum Tenens, which provides temporary nurse practitioners, physician assistants and physicians.

The firm has won numerous awards for its workplace culture. In addition to landing a spot on Staffing Industry Analysts’ 2017 Best Staffing Firms to Work For list, it was one of just a handful of firms to also be named to Staffing Industry Analysts’ Best Staffing Firms to Temp For list this year.

Creating the culture is a very deliberate process, says Adam Roth, the firm’s CEO and son of the founder. For example, the hiring process includes an interview with a culture champion, someone from another office who has a phone conversation to screen the potential hire. The firm also offers a wide range of programs designed to help employees, including flexible schedules, community giving and defined career paths.

The culture stems from the firm’s overall goal: to make life better for others.

“We do that in so many different ways: first, trying to make this a great place for people to come to work, where they are engaged professionally,” Adam Roth says. “If we do that well, the experience we create for our ambassadors and candidates will naturally make them feel part of something larger than just the assignment they’re going out on.”

Employees’ growth has fueled the firm’s growth. Many of the new branches they have opened have been the result of managers ready for the next step in their career, either moving in to a branch manager role or expanding to manage more than one branch.

“There’s an awful lot of clarity in the organization,” Ben Roth says. “Everybody understands what we stand for, why we exist, where we’re going and how we’re going to get there.”

And the culture will continue to evolve. “There’s constant and very defined focus on continuing to make the culture stronger and better, to retain coworkers,” says Adam Roth. “When we look to the future, it’s how we continue to position our existing coworkers for success and help coworkers grow.”