According to Quicken Loans, the nation’s largest online retail mortgage lender, workplace culture is the single most important aspect of the company’s success. Its unique workplace culture frames expectation, frees team members from bureaucracy, sets the tone for everything the organization is today, and has the potential to achieve in the future.
Quicken Loans’ culture is anything but corporate – the dress code is casual and team member off-site outings, breakfast gatherings and luncheons, and interoffice ping pong tournaments are commonplace. It’s this unique culture that sees the company willing to think outside the box and try new things, which includes partnering with Sony Pictures Entertainment this weekend to promote The Smurfs 2, the sequel to the 2011 film The Smurfs, which premieres July 31 in theaters across the country.
Named to FORTUNE magazine’s “Best Places to Work” list the last 10 consecutive years, Quicken Loans also was named the top workplace in America by Workplace Dynamics in January, and the number one place to work in technology by Computerworld magazine. These awards are driven by anonymous team member surveys, which are used as a way to gauge how the company is doing in growing its culture.
It is fitting that, as Quicken Loans celebrates its culture and the foundation of its company that sets it far apart from its competitors, Ryan Newman heads to his home turf this weekend. The South Bend, Ind., native prides himself on being somewhat of an auto racing historian, carefully studying the sport’s past. He considers Indianapolis Motor Speedway to be the cornerstone of auto racing history.
Racing at Indianapolis isn’t significant to Newman just because he is a Hoosier. Instead, it’s the history of the 103-year-old Speedway that makes this weekend’s Brickyard 400 one of the most important events he competes in each season.
So, for Newman, it is an honor to simply walk through the Speedway’s Gasoline Alley as he knows he is following in the footsteps of some of his heroes. And he admits he has caught himself thinking about whose tire tracks he could be following as he travels down the long straightaways.
While Newman is fascinated with the history of the Brickyard, his performance at the track has been lackluster.
In his 12 Sprint Cup visits to Indianapolis, Newman has started outside the top-eight just three times. But while he has made a habit of starting near the front of the Brickyard 400 field, he has not enjoyed the same kind of success when it comes to recording solid finishes in the 160-lap race. Newman has just one top-five at Indianapolis – a fourth-place effort during his 2002 rookie campaign. However, in the 2012 running of the summer classic, Newman recorded a seventh-place finish, which gives him a little confidence heading into this weekend’s 20th annual Brickyard 400.
Currently 19th in points, Newman enters Indy 36 points behind the 10th and final guaranteed spot in the 12-driver, 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. While top-fives will certainly help him climb in the standings, and help five lucky fans win mortgage payments for a month with Quicken Loans’ Bring it Home Sweepstakes, what Newman really needs is to engineer a win for his No. 39 Quicken Loans team this weekend. Doing so would not only help him earn his way into the Chase field via his point standings, it would also put him in contention via wild card berths, which are awarded to the two drivers between 11th and 20th in points with the most wins.
And a win at the Brickyard wouldn’t just give Newman his own page of history at the 2.5-mile speedway, it would also greatly help his team’s quest to make this season’s Chase.
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