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Skip to main contentGolub Capital has been a destination of choice for top talent who are drawn to its strong EVP and its distinctive, inclusive culture. The firm partnered with Korn Ferry to gather employee feedback and develop data-driven action plans to keep raising the bar for its employee experience.
“Nobody has to work at Golub Capital. Nobody has to work anywhere,” explains David Golub, President of Golub Capital. “So we've got to be very focused on making sure that we're doing the right things to make employees want to be here."
This commitment went beyond offering competitive salaries and benefits. It was a signal that Golub Capital prioritized creating an environment that emphasized employee development: giving employees compelling opportunities to accelerate their career growth and supporting them in that growth with extensive resources and an inclusive company culture.
These elements would become crucial in sustaining Golub Capital’s strengths in attracting, retaining, and developing talent in the highly competitive field of private credit.
To gain more insight into its employee experience, Golub Capital partnered with Korn Ferry Listen to develop a comprehensive employee listening program. The program includes an annual employee engagement survey and a rigorous, data-driven process for translating survey findings into action plans for continuous improvement.
What does “employee listening” mean? It involves systematically gathering, analyzing, and acting on employee feedback to drive meaningful improvements. And, crucially, it means repeating this process year after year to demonstrate an enduring commitment to deepening employee engagement.
Korn Ferry Listen worked with Golub Capital to design and implement custom surveys, analyze results, and generate actionable recommendations. With Korn Ferry Listen, Golub Capital created a feedback loop that allowed leaders to identify areas of strength and opportunities for continuous improvement with respect to the employee experience.
Korn Ferry’s expertise and reputation as a trusted partner gave employees confidence that their feedback would be held in strict confidence, establishing a foundation of trust that has led to near-100% participation rates on Golub Capital’s last several employee engagement surveys.
"The engagement survey process helps us assess how we're doing with our employees, what they're seeing, what they're feeling," says David Golub. "It gives us a set of recommendations each year that come directly from our employees about things we can improve. Korn Ferry’s objectivity and trustworthiness in the eyes of our employees are critical to making this process successful. The fact that nearly all of our employees take the time to give us their candid feedback, year after year, gives us an incredibly powerful database that we can continue to use to improve together."
The insights proved invaluable, helping Golub Capital develop targeted initiatives to maintain the organization's high retention rates, enhance employee satisfaction through new strategies, and continue to attract top talent.
"For Golub Capital, these surveys are more than just feedback tools. They're a key driver of competitive advantage," says Mark Royal of Korn Ferry. “Through insights found across the organization, Golub Capital can take targeted actions and build on their strategies each year and continue to deliver on their strong Employee Value Proposition."
Golub Capital describes the core of its organizational culture with the phrase “Gold Standard.”
"Gold Standard means treating each other and our business partners the way we would want to be treated if we were on the other side of the table. There's also something aspirational about the Gold Standard. It's about doing our best," says David Golub.
This principle came to form the heart of Golub Capital's operations, including hiring processes, employee onboarding and development, and performance reviews. It translated into specific practices, such as rigorous interview guidelines to find top talent, customized professional development programs for existing staff, and a continuous improvement mindset across all processes.
By embracing these ideas, Golub Capital created a work environment where employees were deeply engaged and motivated to excel—a fact reflected in the firm’s consistently high employee engagement and enablement scores.
Korn Ferry Listen also helps Golub Capital tap into the aspirational nature of its Gold Standard culture by providing comprehensive benchmarks as part of Golub Capital’s annual engagement survey process. These benchmarks give Golub Capital insight into how its results stack up against a proprietary “high-performing norm” of exceptional companies across a range of industries, as well as against other companies in the financial services industry.
Golub Capital didn't just talk about employee growth—it put significant resources behind it. Its comprehensive approach included curated curricula and mentoring programs. This focus on development was a key component of its annual surveys.
"If you get training and development right, it's great for your team and your organization," says David Golub. While acknowledging that these programs were expensive and time-consuming, he saw them as crucial investments. "The outcome of these programs is low turnover, a high ability to do promotions from within, and a very long-tenured team."
A standout feature of Golub Capital's development strategy was its Individual Development Program (IDP), a program that paired employees with specialists to create personalized Learning & Development plans, which could include coaching, targeted training sessions, mentoring, and hands-on learning experiences.
Golub Capital's focus on employee listening and furthering engagement led to impressive results.
"Over the last seven years, Golub Capital has had consistently strong employee engagement and enablement scores, and they’ve managed to keep improving from their strong baseline. Their employee retention rates are well above industry averages, and surveys show a strong intent among employees to stay with the firm year after year,” says Mark Royal from Korn Ferry.
These indicators clearly demonstrate Golub Capital's success in creating a workplace where employees feel valued and engaged. Its approach of developing action plans based on employee listening surveys proved effective in driving meaningful enhancements across the organization to focus on what matters most to their employees.
As a result, Golub Capital strengthened its reputation as an employer of choice in the competitive financial services industry.
“We’re grateful for our long-standing partnership with Korn Ferry,” says David Golub. “They understand the strategic importance of sustaining a compelling Employee Value Proposition, and their expertise helps us continue to raise the bar for our team.”
If you want to improve employee engagement and build a committed workforce, find out how Korn Ferry can help by getting in touch.
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