Why An AMC (Like Ngage) Is A Great Place to Work
While not immediately recognizable to some, the concept of association management is familiar to the world of professional societies, trade groups, not-for-profits and philanthropic organizations. Association Management Companies (AMCs) allow services to be customized to meet specific client goals, supporting strategic planning, membership development, communications, marketing, finance, board governance, and more.
Working at an AMC, employees:
Assist in achieving clients’ goals
Work with a variety of clients
Improve and expand their own professional skills
Make a difference by supporting clients’ missions
Why Ngage
Founded in 2013, Ngage Management is a full-service association and event management company headquartered in mid-Michigan. In four short years, Ngage became Michigan's largest association management company. Today, we have 43 employees working in 10 states serving 22 clients – including seven international clients.
We provide employees with a robust overview of how AMCs work, including how the Ngage team provides clients with expertise, staffing and resources to effectively manage day-to-day operations so the board and members can focus on achieving their goals.
Employees are assigned to client teams and provide customized services to meet client needs. As we continue to grow, employees have opportunities to move into different roles, including membership development, event planning, communications, and more. With multiple clients, our staff leverages skills and abilities across member organizations to ensure each receives the highest level of customer service. Learning opportunities abound!
Working at an AMC like Ngage is great! Here are just a few reasons why.
Facilitating Team Building
When someone begins work at Ngage, among Ngage-branded items, a note from your manager and a multi-month success plan, employees complete the CliftonStrengths assessment. This assessment allows employees to identify their strengths by measuring natural patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving and categorizing them into 34 themes.
Ngage uses this tool to better serve our culture and our clients. Culture is more than a concept -- it's a combination of how employees feel and how they are treated. By empowering employees to be able to do what they do best, Ngage has seen stronger team dynamics, better conversations, and increased collaboration. Employees have shared experiences of improved interactions with other teams as well.
The results? Higher employee engagement, retention, productivity, and performance. When we get the best out of the team, we get the best out of Ngage, achieving the highest level of customer service.
Focusing on Culture
Building on the usage of CliftonStrengths, employees decided to initiate a group to set the culture and environment of our organization. The Ngage Culture Crew was created to funnel ideas for teambuilding activities, volunteer options, educational lunch and learns, celebrating personal employee milestones, and more. Through these opportunities, employees have been able to get to know, learn, and celebrate with each other, resulting in a more engaged and collaborative culture.
A new initiative started in 2022 by the Crew called Coffee Chats provided new opportunities for employees to get to know each other through 15-minute chats. As Ngage now has 43 employees working in 10 states, this has been a great way for employees who don’t work together to get to know each other in a casual, open format.
The Coffee Chats foster relationships between employees who may not work together on a regular basis while introducing them to new perspectives. By creating opportunities for employees to begin to understand someone else’s situation, perspective, goals and aspirations, employees gain a better picture of the amazing group of people who embody the organization. As Ngage continues to grow, Coffee Chats become more integral in the culture of inclusion and support we want to build upon. In 2023, Coffee Chats continue to be part of our culture!
Community Engagement
The Culture Crew also identifies and schedules community projects, including helping with a Habitat for Humanity house building, volunteering at the Women's Center, collecting cereal for a local food bank, financial contributions to employee-supported community organizations, and serving on nonprofit boards of directors.
Every effort is made to include employees working outside the home office, such as identifying volunteer opportunities in their geographic areas and providing support for them to participate in these activities.
Professional Development
Ngage is also committed to providing professional development options for employees on an ongoing basis. This allows employees to focus on their career progression which helps build confidence, rejuvenates them for their role at Ngage, and provides a chance to learn from others.
We have found when employees learn new skills, they apply those to improve project management and innovative solutions for clients, resulting in higher productivity and client satisfaction. This also results in an increase in employee retention, offering providing higher-skilled team and continuity to clients.
Our proudest achievements are the succus of our clients and team members. Our company culture is based on our core values: customer care, autonomy, integrity, open collaboration, innovation, inclusivity and having fun. We look forward to more opportunities to offer employees to learn and grow in their own roles by encouraging curiosity, innovation, respect, and teamwork.
