For 14 consecutive years, Royal United Mortgage has been among the winners in The Indianapolis Star’s annual ranking of the areas top workplaces. It’s an achieve­ment unmatched by any company in the annual survey of Central Indiana employ­ers.
So how does a company within an indus­try that is filled with ebbs and flows stay on top despite market conditions? For the leaders at Royal United, it starts with a sin­gular focus on the people, Whether it’s their team members or their customers, employees at Royal .United say their people-first purpose is what sets them apart.
‘We aren’t a loan origination company. That’s not what we do on a regular basis,” said Royal United CEO Gabe Allen. “We are a people development company. And every bit of who we are, from the interview pro­cess through their first day of employment, it’s really all about people development first and foremost:’ Allen speaks from his own experience. He· started with the company in 2009 as a loan advisor and has slowly risen to the top where he now leads more than460 U.S. employees, including 338 at the company’s headquarters near Castleton Mall on the Far Northside of Indianapolis.
Founded in 2008 during the Great Reces­sion, Royal’s mission is a simple one: make life better for its employees and customers.
“This is a place that is really more fam­ily oriented and thinks about the employ­ees first;’ said Brandon Powe, who left a retail job to join Royal more than six years ago and now leads a team ofl2 employees. “That’s why I love coming here. I never had a job before this one where I enjoyed going to work.”
Like a lot of companies, the pandemic forced Royal United leadership to rethink how work gets done. The company invested heavily in technology to give workers the