In her more than 25 years with Bank of America, Chief People Officer Sheri Bronstein has accumulated a wealth of accomplishments—and they are all rooted in one goal: designing and delivering an employee experience that resonates with the workforce’s real needs.
That objective has helped Bank of America become a champion of fair compensation and leading-edge benefits, while earning repeat accolades as a leading employer from organizations like Fortune, Forbes and the Great Place to Work Institute. The latter found that employee satisfaction among Bank of America employees sits at 83%, compared to the U.S. average of 57%.
“Being a great place to work is a core pillar of how we run the company,” says Bronstein, a recent inductee to the National Academy of Human Resources Fellowship.
A significant driver of employee satisfaction—and, in turn, talent attraction and retention—is Bank of America’s investment in its employees’ financial health.
Bronstein says the focus is natural for the financial giant.
“We’re providing financial advice to customers every day,” she says. “We need to make sure our employees are not under financial pressure and stress.”
Last year, the bank raised its minimum hourly wage for U.S. employees to $25, a $10 jump since 2018. Starting full-time salaries have grown by $20,000 in that time, now sitting at more than $50,000 a year.
Bronstein says Bank of America’s intentional work to ensure all employees have a “living wage” has helped drive a wider movement across the nation.
“Over time, we made a decision to be a leader on this [fair wages],” she says. “It’s good for the American economy and for communities. We’re not saying every company has to be where we are, but we have tried to encourage others to follow our lead to the extent they can.”
Employee financial wellness is also a cornerstone of the company’s broader employee benefits design.
The company takes a “graduated approach” to how it thinks about benefits, she says. For instance, healthcare premium increases are allocated based on salary, with efforts to keep any increases at or below the inflation rate. For more than a dozen years, healthcare premiums have stayed flat for those in the lowest earning bracket.
The role of financial wellness in employees’ holistic health is also an aim of benefits like tuition assistance—through which employees can receive up to $7,500 annually—and the organization’s automatic 401(k) enrollment policy.
Employee mental health is another key to strengthening overall wellbeing and employee satisfaction, supported through benefits like back-up childcare and fertility and menopause support. A sabbatical program launched in 2023 has become one of the company’s most popular benefits, Bronstein adds.
Employees with at least 15 years of tenure now are able to take a paid, four- to six-week leave; more than 21,000 employees have taken advantage of the sabbatical program, which Bronstein—who is taking her own sabbatical this year—says has become a game-changer for both engagement and retention, particularly in a high-stress industry like banking.
A ‘culture of caring’ at Bank of America
While Bank of America’s benefits are designed to provide employees with well-rounded support, the HR team did identify a gap.
Nearly 15 years ago, as the organization sought to “rebuild trust” with customers, communities and its own workforce after the financial crisis of the early 2000s, Bronstein and her predecessor recognized that the outsourcing of some HR practices could be harming those efforts. For example, if an employee passed away, the HR generalist would be involved at the start but would ultimately pass those impacted along to a vendor.
That was leaving employees without direct, internal HR support in some of the “moments that matter” the most. That recognition led to the 2014 creation of the Life Event Services team, comprised of about 120 internal and external experts, who have helped employees and their families and teams walk through a range of crises: hurricanes, fires, school shootings, military deployments, terminal illnesses, domestic violence. During COVID, Bank of America scaled the unit up to 500 people.
Bronstein says the LES team has enabled the organization to step up for its workforce and “own the most difficult time,” providing them expert-led support when they need it the most. In its first 10 years, the team handled more than 680,000 cases.
“They are there to help support managers, leaders, teammates,” she says. “It’s really unique, and a true testament to the culture of caring that we have.”
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