Fast Focus
	Assurance is big on employee perks from dance lessons to fast cash for contributing good ideas and good people.
	Once a p-c producer, Gould built the firm’s benefits business, now runs it as COO.
	She’ll make a special effort to recruit college women to the business.

The Gould Life

Jackie’s World (Is A Very Cool Space). She turns Assurance into an adventure.

By  Louise Lague

When it comes to benefits and employee retention, Assurance Insurance of Schaumburg, Ill., walks its talk. Balloons sporting $100 bills are taped to the chairs of worthy employees. The gang enjoys salsa lessons on site, a penthouse lounge with board games and books, nights at Second City’s comedy theater, cruises on Lake Michigan, discounted movie tickets, free nicotine patches, chair massages, free fresh fruit, health club dues—it goes on and on.

It’s been dubbed the ninth best place to work in Chicagoland, which is no faint praise considering the competition includes Nike and Yahoo, workplaces celebrated for their hang-loose, high-bennie culture. Read the Web site and meet employees at all levels, whimsically profiled with their passions for sports trivia, Cocoa Krispies, and acting out Disney movies.

If you were to visit, you might expect one of those toddler mosh pits full of colored plastic balls, with employees gleefully wiggling and giggling within. Not quite. There is a formal reception desk and a running slide show of employees doing volunteer work in the community. There is also a 5-foot high cutout of a light bulb, dubbed Ivan Idea, who solicits input from the gang. If your idea is used, bang! You get $250.

The chief operating officer and official steward of frolic is Jackie Gould, 42, former leader of the benefits practice, who says, “We try to make it a fun workplace. We’re not afraid to be corny or out there in some of our events.” She claims to be too shy for the salsa lessons, but she did pick out the blue glass jugs that adorn every table in the penthouse lounge. “It just needed, you know, a little color.”

While wacky ideas are always welcome, says Gould, “sometimes we have to say, ‘Hey, we are a business, and we still have to work. No pool tables.’”

That’s not a big problem since the employees also enjoy a shared success program, with bonuses and kickers for goals met.

The point of all this, says Gould, is “to put our employees first, knowing that they in turn will put the clients first.” Besides the parties and balloons, Gould says, “we make sure they have the tools to do their jobs. Lots of technology.”

Half of Assurance’s employees have been referred by other employees, who get a bonus for bringing in new talent. “Our current employees are the best storytellers,” she says. Once the newbies arrive, they find not only copious tuition reimbursements and a little bio in the employee newsletter, but “a respectful culture, with open doors—a flat organization, where people are treated equally. On a compensation and benefits standpoint, we’re very competitive.”

Employee benefits at Assurance are not just fun, they’re also “an incubator for products and ideas that we can test and then pass on to our benefits customers,” says CEO Tony Chimino. “That was Jackie’s idea. We try it out, we get data on how it works.”

Onward and Upward

Assurance’s revenues have risen from $8 million to $37 million in the last 11 years, in a lovely, steady climb upwards. Gould is largely responsible for doubling the staff of the benefits department, which she headed for five years.

While a woman working in property and casualty “is a standout,” says Gould, who has noticed that the line for the men’s room is longer than the line for the women’s room at p-c meetings, “I see more women in leadership positions in benefits. It’s still insurance. You’re managing risk and putting together programs. But there’s a whole, huge, human element that enters into benefits.”

Gould’s influence on the business extends from tech system design to interior décor—and much in between. It’s a surprising bag of tricks for a woman who swore, as a college student, that she would pursue any career except insurance and sales.