Charles Schwab is a banking and brokerage company in America that was founded by Charles R in 1971 as a traditional mortar and brick brokage company. It is based in San Francisco, California. The company changed its name in 1973 to Charles Schwab & Co. from First Commander Corporation. On 1st May 1975, the company began offering discount brokage and later entered the category of the principal discount brokers in the world (Kador 64).
The company has four major divisions that include wealth management, banking, trading and investing. It serves about 7.9 million accounts of client brokage with about 1.65 trillion dollars in assets. This is an estimation from the more than three hundred offices in the United States, a branch in London and an office in Puerto Rico. The company has a very strong leadership team that gives it great support to challenge the status quo of the industry, ensuring that its clients receive excellent services, and their needs are served well.
Unlike other companies in the same industry, Schwab does not focus on the extraction of high fees from the customers either through high transaction fees or through advisors pushing the internally managed products to become expensive. To differentiate itself, Schwab has focused on offering low cost to its customers and investors, making it a perfect machine of asset gathering. This is one strategic way through which the company delivers value to its clients. It has focused on low-interest rates while attracting many clients at the same time. This has enabled the company to improve its assets at a rate of nine percent yearly since 2006. It also grew its client assets by 6.7%. To achieve this, Schwab encourages people to invest in it (Savage 2).
Charles Schwab has been influenced by its investing belief and has indeed formed a very powerful bond between the company, employees, investors, and advisors. For instance, the company serves one million banking accounts, seven thousand RIAs, about 2.57 trillion dollars in client assets and corporate participants of the retirement plan of about 1.5 million. The company serves individual investors, who are motivated and driven people with the belief that investing would give them an effective control over their finances in future. The company also serves advisors, who are the independently registered and with the belief that there is a better way of serving investors. In addition, the company serves the employers, who include those companies and other businesses that have a clear understanding that assisting the employees towards a safe retirement is the best way to motivate their employees (Charles Schwab Corporation).
The company has many values to its potential candidates. Apart from its traditional benefit plans, Schwab empowers its employees with quality education, support services, and tools that are helpful in the management of their health and well-being. To add on that, the company goes beyond that and offers a one-on-one financial guidance to the candidates to help them understand their overall financial picture and also design a custom plan that matches the personal and professional goals of the candidates. The company encourages its employees to take charge of their health and manage their well-being. For this reason, it ensures the provision of comprehensive health plans, wellness programs and health resources that are useful in helping those candidates make informed decisions and support their overall health.
For instance, the company pays seventy-five percent of the employee total cost of health benefits coverage, and once one is hired, their benefit becomes effective in the first month. It also offers ample medical coverage through the Kaiser Permanente for the residents of Colorado and California only, and the United Healthcare (UHC). This medical plan is aimed at helping drive healthy behaviors, give the candidates more control over their decisions concerning their health and promote awareness of health costs. The medical plan also has a Health Saving Account (HAS) that helps the candidates save for their health expenses, the Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account for children and elderly, dental services, and the wellness eye exams for vision improvement.
The company believes that all people are justified to receive the required help to reach their desired financial goals. Schwab also has a commitment to provide its clients with same opportunities with the financial options, tools and guidance that would make them make the right decisions towards their financial health and success. For instance, the company’s 401(k) plan enables the candidates to save for retirement easily through making pre-tax contributions; the clients also have a chance to choose from a range of investments (Charles Schwab Corporate Services).
In addition, the company gives its employees an opportunity to participate in its corporate bonus plan where awards are given as per individual performance. Employees are also involved in the company’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP), where they can contribute one percent to ten percent of their compensation to buy the company's stock at a discount of fifteen percent from the fair market price. Schwab also gives its employees the most ethical and useful advice concerning finances. This might include trading discounts, financial workshops and complimentary consultations (Melnick, Nayyer and Pinedo 203).
The company gives its employees some brokage discounts, which include twenty percent of all commissions and fees and twenty percent of the trade commissions. The fee is 7.16 dollars per trade as compared to 8.95 dollars for the normal clients. It also offers its employees education reimbursement. Schwab reimburses expenses for business-related education, training, workshops, classes and seminars, and even professional certifications. The company also provides reimbursement for both undergraduate and graduate college programs (Charles Schwab).
It is worth noting that the company values giving back to the community. For instance, It offers a paid volunteer time off that is useful to those volunteering to the nonprofit organizations, principally the ones that are dedicated to the financial well-being and education. The company also supports an annual Volunteer Week where the employees unite to give back to the community through participating in different projects nationally.
Lastly, Charles and Schwab company gives its candidates time to share and to grow. The company also give the injured and sick employees time to heal and the other employees can donate their vacation and unused time to ensure that those affected get the time off they need. The company gives a twenty-eight day paid sabbatical to the eligible employees after five years, a time that can be useful for relaxation or even for pursuing professional development like education or community service. For this reason, being an employee, a customer or an investor to the company gives one a golden opportunity to position themselves to the advantage of receiving these values.
Works Cited
Charles Schwab. " Working at Schwab Has Its Benefits." November 2014. Charles Schwab. Monday June 2015 <http://aboutschwab.com/images/uploads/inline/2014_Charles_Schwab_Benefits__Beyo nd.pdf>.
Charles Schwab Corporate Services. Full Service Retirement Plans. Tuesday January 2015. Monday June 2015 <http://corporateservices.schwab.com/public/corporate/retirement_services/full_service_r etirement_plans>.
Charles Schwab Corporation. The Clients We Serve. Sunday May 2015. Monday June 2015 <http://aboutschwab.com/>.
Kador, John. Charles Schwab: How One Company Beat Wall Street and Reinvented the Brokerage Industry. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2002.
Melnick, Edward L., et al. Creating Value in Financial Services: Strategies, Operations and Technologies. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.
Savage, Elliott. "Charles Schwab: Creating Value for Customers and Investors." YCG
Investments February 2015: 1-4.
