Catholic media company Ascension was recently named to the 2024 Fortune Best Small Workplaces List — a feat the company says is a first among Catholic organizations.
Based in metro Philadelphia, but with a fully remote workplace model, Ascension is known for its publishing division, Bible study resources, YouTube presence, and the popular podcasts “Bible in a Year” and “Catechism in a Year,” which are hosted by Father Mike Schmitz.
To compile the list, analytics firm Great Place to Work analyzed survey responses of more than 31,000 employees from Great Place to Work Certified companies. Based on their analysis, 99% of Ascension employees reported that it was a “great place to work.”
For 2024, Ascension placed eighth on Fortune’s list of best workplaces in the United States with 10 to 99 U.S. employees. In addition to the top-10 designation overall, Ascension was also named as No. 64 on Fortune’s list of Best Workplaces for Millennials 2024 (Small And Medium) earlier this year.
Jonathan Strate, Ascension’s CEO since 2017, told CNA in an interview that Ascension has been intentionally working on improving its work culture for years, using benchmarking tools like the Trust Index from the Great Place to Work Institute.
The process has involved surveying employees to measure trust in management and other factors, Strate said, leading to feedback on areas needing improvement such as leave policies, professional development, and fair pay.
As a fully remote company since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Strate said through careful and deliberate hiring processes and ensuring that employees are self-directed and motivated, they are able to trust employees to manage their own schedules.
Strate said the workplace culture at Ascension has contributed to a low employee turnover rate of less than 3 percent, which allows the company to reallocate resources typically spent on recruiting and training new employees toward enhancing employee benefits.
Ascension rolled out new paid family leave policies in 2023, expanding its maternity leave offering from one paid week to 12 and its paternity leave offering from one week to six. The company also introduced six weeks of paid leave for new adoptive parents.
Ascension also offers a rare leave policy for couples experiencing pregnancy loss: 12 weeks for mothers and six weeks for fathers.
As a father of six himself, Strate said at the time the new leave policies went into effect that he sees an opportunity for Catholic organizations to lead the way “going above and beyond what the law requires” in implementing family-focused policies, like paid leave, that can help to “build a culture of life.”
Ascension has since made the templates for their new benefits publicly available in an effort to encourage other organizations to adopt similar policies.
Now, over a year on from the start of their new leave policies, Strate said they have found that investing in employee satisfaction has ultimately paid off through increased dedication and retention. Strate also said he believes they’ve created a company that is a great place to work for anybody, not just Catholics.
“If you don’t invest in [benefits and workplace culture], you are at risk of losing some great people and not being as competitive out there,” he noted.
Strate said some Catholic organizations — especially nonprofits, which Ascension is not — may be hesitant to invest in the kinds of competitive benefits that employees want, but he noted that companies that don’t make that investment will need to contend with “costs that come with employee dissatisfaction.”
“To be really intentional about the employee experience is the first place to start,” he said.
“And if you communicate a commitment to wanting to do that … The employees pay it back to you in the form of dedication, in the form of sticking around.”
