Highwire places a strong emphasis on employee satisfaction, and that includes a foundational culture of promoting from within to establish high expectations in career trajectories. From intern all the way up to VP, Highwire nurtures employee growth to ensure employees get all they can -- and want -- from a career in PR.
Highwire fiercely stands by and refuses to waver from two things: its commitment to quality healthcare coverage and its bi-annual bonus/profit sharing program. On top of that, Highwire offers incentives and perks above and beyond the bare-bones basics: three weeks of PTO in your first year + office closed between Christmas and New Year's, 401k match (immediately 100 percent vested), referral bonus for all levels, and a flexible work from home program.
This year Highwire also implemented the WOOF! program (Work Out of the Office Fridays) where employees can work remotely given there aren’t any in office, face-to-face requirements. Another asset that stands out against the larger holding company landscape is the new business referral: if the agency wins a piece of business introduced by a Highwire employee, that employee will earn 5 percent of the agency's revenue from that client for a year.
Highwire’s Society team is there to ensure that there is an interesting mix of personality in its culture – and, most of all, that hard work is rewarded. The Society team oversees a number of activities to forge employee bonds, including company pod events (Highwire’s open office has employees sitting at tables of six or more called pods). Each pod is named after superheroes, and once a quarter, a pod gets to design an event, which has included fun nights with wine blending, poker lessons taught by a gambling pro, luaus and scavenger hunts, just to name a few.