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New: Keller Williams Ranks as the Happiest Company

Posted on Feb 2, 2018


Like most people these days, I’ve worked in several different jobs. While all of these jobs were stepping stones, some were stranger than others. In high school, I was a cashier for a retail chain that shall remain unnamed, and I remember that they didn’t allow employees to keep a water bottle at the register with us. In college, I worked for a woman who ran her own business, which appeared to be some kind of pyramid scheme. She mostly wanted me to create a spreadsheet of her airline credit cards and frequent flyer miles. One summer I worked for my college’s environmental health and safety officer and spent long days in the basement researching conspiracy theories about disease on the internet at his request. That was a weird summer.

Later in my twenties, I spent a lot of time thinking about happiness, and how this relates to my work. I personally derive satisfaction and happiness from working as a writer and as a teacher–perhaps because both of these jobs mean that I get to drink water at my desk whenever I want and that I don’t have to spend hours in windowless basements researching conspiracy theories or sorting through someone’s expired credit cards.

How to find happiness and satisfaction in one’s career is an enormous, critical question. Colleges like Yale and Stanford are even starting to offer classes on how to find meaning in one’s career. What kind of work makes you feel good? Have you taken the time recently to think about this?

According to Forbes, the site CareerBliss recently ranked Pickett Street’s parent company Keller Williams as the happiest company to work for in 2018. This is no small feat; Keller Williams ranked above other huge companies like Nike, Starbucks, and Apple.

To create their list of the happiest companies, CareerBliss analyzed thousands of employee reviews from across the country. Forbes mentions that Keller Williams’ high levels of happiness are partly due to the way the company empowers its employees to control of their own career growth and paths.

Regarding Keller Williams’ ability to support happiness in its employees, Pickett Street’s listing coordinator Christi Samaniego says, “I believe that each of us really appreciate and care for each other…We laugh, cry, celebrate, and hold each accountable to a level that only makes us better individually and professionally.” This sense of family especially permeates Pickett Street’s work environment. “We are a very goal oriented team,” team administrator Sarah Troske adds. “We all support and encourage each other to grow personally and professionally.”

Regarding how she finds meaning in her work, director of operations Margaret Smith notes that, for her, “social capital is what life is all about,” and that she finds meaning in working for people in whom she believes. Samaniego adds, “I believe in our system. I believe the structure and processes that Pickett Street follows bring a ton of value to our clients. Nothing feels better to me than ensuring each client walks away happy and than seeing the value that our team brings to each transaction.”

Since 2013, Keller Williams has also been the largest real estate company by agent count in the country. As of 2015, the company employed over 133,000 agents. Just recently, the company also became the leader in sheer volume of sales, with over $72.5 billion during their record-breaking fourth quarter in 2017. Perhaps this business success sprouts from the company’s focus on happiness.

If Pickett Street and Keller Williams sound like a place where you can find a meaningful and happy career, then contact Margaret Smith at Margaret@PickettStreet.com or 206-228-5067. Or, if you’re interested in buying or selling a home in the Seattle area, get in touch with the rest of the team at (425) 502-5397 or info@pickettstreet.com.

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