NAI Hiffman | Hiffman National (“Hiffman”) is the largest full-service, privately owned commercial real estate brokerage and management company in the Midwest, and currently expanding to bring our services to clients Nationwide. The Company takes pride in its philosophy of being trusted by Hiffman’s teammates, vendors, clients, and prospects, alike, which stems from its deep commitment to driving value for all of Hiffman’s stakeholders. Hiffman is proud to share its first ESG Statement.
To Hiffman, success represents doing business and supporting partners in ways that build a healthy and sustainable environment, engage employees and partners, and support a safe Hiffman community. In Hiffman’s first formalized Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Statement, the Company highlights three key focus areas for its ESG strategy moving forward:
- Build Healthy and Sustainable Environments: Promote buildings that are sustainable and healthy across Hiffman’s managed portfolio and operations
- Engage Employees and Partners: Engage with and listen to feedback from employees, tenants, vendors, and community partners to enhance Hiffman’s value to stakeholders and overall impact
- Support an Inclusive and Safe Community: Implement measures to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as frameworks that ensure mature cybersecurity practices and maintain physical safety.
Build Healthy and Sustainable Environments
Hiffman strives to manage buildings that both minimize its environmental impact and support the health of tenants. As such, the Company works with owners and tenants to implement green buildings and/or health and well-being certifications such as the ENERGY STAR or WELL Building Standard.
From an operational perspective, the Company shares numerous sustainability and health standards with managers to implement in Hiffman buildings. These include guidance on choosing cleaning services who use safe and nontoxic products and providing support for mental health recovery, promotion of flu vaccines, and adequate ventilation.
Hiffman’s focus on health and wellness also extends to the Company’s employees. Hiffman offers a hybrid work environment that allows employees greater flexibility and work-life balance, as well as promotes health and wellness in corporate offices by providing healthy snacks and facilitating culture initiatives such as step challenges and other activities.
Engage Employees and Partners
Hiffman is a company that guides itself on its core values of Accountability, Collaboration, Innovation, and Integrity. The Company stands behind these values and is always trusted to do what it says it will. These values are central to Hiffman’s mission and the impact it makes for its clients and its employees.
To that end, Hiffman proactively engages with employees and tenants to address its concerns and feedback. The Company solicits feedback through annual workplace surveys, “Career Conversation” review processes, and informal discussions. From this feedback, the Company utilizes eight internal Task Forces, each structured around solving a particular employee and/or tenant-related issue. Topics include implementing health and safety measures (not limited to those addressing COVID-19), providing employees a way to exchange support for each other, and collaborating with charitable partners. Furthermore, the Company added an ESG fund option to its 401k, enabling employees to support ESG values in their own investments.
Hiffman gives back to every community it touches. Hiffman fundraises and provides employees with a day off once a year to volunteer at events for local and national charities. The Company also donates to charities that employees pitch through a “Charity Shark Tank” and involves its partners in philanthropic efforts through its “Hiffman Event” dodgeball tournament. At the most recent event, Hiffman raised $70,000. More information on company culture and community engagement can be found on the Community page of Hiffman’s website.
Hiffman is also committed to teaming with vendors who excel in the Company’s core values and have aligned themselves with Hiffman’s vision of being “Trusted to do what we say we will do.” As such, the Company engages with vendors to communicate its expectations and requirements for vendor partners to uphold standards in Hiffman’s Vendor Management Program.
Support an Inclusive and Safe Community
Hiffman is known for its company culture, and the Company continues to build and foster a culture that is safe, respectful, fair, and inclusive for all of its employees. Hiffman’s goal is to continue to build a workforce that welcomes everyone from a broad range of experiences – a place where differences drive innovative solutions and where supporting collaboration among team members with unique perspectives generates greater insights to best serve the Company’s clients and the Hiffman family. The Company’s culture and policies make Hiffman a USA Top Workplace of choice and where talented professionals of all diverse backgrounds can grow a rewarding career.
Hiffman specifically prioritizes diversity, equity, and inclusion principles across its spheres of influences. Hiffman’s Sync Leadership team, comprised of individuals representing a diverse array of backgrounds, exemplifies these principles. Furthermore, the Company’s Cultural & Diversity Committee is focused on ensuring all employees feel supported and is in the process of identifying areas where Hiffman can support underprivileged groups in the areas where it operates.
Hiffman proactively works with diverse and local vendors and adds them to preferred vendors lists that are shared with clients and tenants where relevant. Hiffman strives to continue working with more diverse and local vendors, and as such, captures social and demographic information on vendors, including the percentage of vendors that are owned by females, minorities, and/or veterans, to track the Company’s continued progress in this initiative.
One integral component of “safety” is ensuring that the sensitive, proprietary information Hiffman holds and interacts with daily is safe and secure. In addition to regular verification of the Company’s internal financial accounting controls, Hiffman has adopted a Center for Internet Security (CIS) Controls framework to direct its efforts in developing a mature, secure, cybersecurity practice. As part of this framework, Hiffman uses external cybersecurity assessors, has developed disaster recovery policies & procedures, and trains employees on cyber risks and prevention practices. To mitigate the impact of other physical risks, Hiffman encourages tenants to develop emergency preparedness and business continuity plans.
One of Hiffman’s core values is “Collaboration.” To that end, Hiffman regularly engages with its stakeholders and partners and aims to make progress in each of these key focus areas through: formalizing interdisciplinary ESG oversight with teams across the Company, refining key ESG priorities, and developing an actionable ESG plan.
