Our inclusive workplace
Strength through diverse people and ideas
Our culture
Our approach to work is based on adherence to important ethical standards and rules.
The TradeStation Way, our employee culture playbook, helps define our dedication to continuous improvement and innovation for our customers in an environment that reflects our values. This is best described by the 26 TradeStation Fundamentals that define how employees conduct themselves and approach their work. Act with Integrity, Collaborate, Honor Your Commitments, and Listen are just a few of the fundamentals that help define our culture.
We seek to hire and retain employees from all walks of life who collaborate in a high-performance environment to provide our customers with exceptional products and services. All TradeStation employees are required to read and acknowledge our Ethics and Compliance Code of Conduct, which reflects our commitment to upholding a culture of honesty, integrity, confidentiality, accountability, and compliance with laws, and outlines the basic principles and policies which guide all our employees.
Diversity, equity & inclusion
As we Appreciate Each Other and our differences, we help each other Strive for Better as we Deliver Legendary Service. To help advance our progress within Diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI), we created a DEI Council – formed with the purpose of working collaboratively with senior leadership, employees, and select communities to:
- advocate and support diversity in our organization;
- encourage and promote equal opportunities for underrepresented groups; and
- create an environment that fosters growth, understanding, and success.
Our commitment to creating an environment where everyone feels valued and supported has helped drive new diversity and inclusion initiatives over the last year. Through our DEI Council we created a Women’s Resource Group, with the goal of encouraging skill building and networking among women at TradeStation. Other ongoing initiatives include collaborations with recruitment agencies that have a focus on promoting underrepresented minorities in the recruitment stage, setting up an LGBTQ+ channel to help promote engagement, and more.
Embedded in our recruitment and retention efforts are a set of DEI principles, in which we collaborate and take proactive steps to recruit from a diverse set of candidate pools and schools. Along with new hires, we also hire participants for our internship program each year. Our compensation practices are based on market trends and take into account each employee’s skillset, performance and responsibility levels, and tenure with the organization.
“We seek to foster an environment that values diversity, quality, and inclusiveness and where growth, mutual understanding, and success are attainable for everyone.”
Takashi Oyagi
Chief Strategic Officer
Member, Board of Directors
Executive Sponsor of TradeStation DEI Council
Engagement
Honor Your Commitments, Be Transparent and Listen are three of the TradeStation Fundamentals which show our commitment to making TradeStation a great place to work. Among other benefits, an engaged workforce helps us to innovate, reduces employee turnover, and helps us Deliver Results for our customers.
Our employees are the driving force behind our company. They make up our culture and drive our initiatives. Our goal therefore is to provide a work experience that is both challenging and rewarding — an experience that is flexible and meets our team members’ changing needs.
We strive to create a flexible working relationship that lets many employees choose the manner in which they work — in an office, a hybrid working environment, or fully remote. This has challenged us to find ways to adapt to less in-person interaction. An important commitment for us is to continue holding quarterly employee meetings, now via webinar, between senior leaders and employees, where we review financial goals, give strategic and product updates, recognize employees, and answer live questions.
We have created a flexible working relationship that allows many employees to choose the manner in which they work — in an office, a hybrid working environment, or fully remote. With in-person interactions now less frequent we have committed to continue holding quarterly employee meetings via webinar between senior leaders and employees where we review financial goals, give strategic and product updates, recognize employees, and answer live questions.
“Our fundamental of Embrace Change embodies our spirit of innovation toward products and services as well as our employees as we define new ways of working.”
Michael Fisch
Chief Technology Officer
Training & development
Never Stop Learning: Training is an essential part of engaging our employees and, in our view, leads to a more cohesive culture. Cultivating talent and promoting from within our organization are priorities for TradeStation, evidenced by our high employee retention level compared to industry trends. This includes maintaining an ongoing focus on leadership development. We do this through various training programs that range from personal health and stress management to collaboration strategies and forward-focused initiatives. These sessions help align our leadership with strategic goals, while developing our leaders and fostering better communication.
We also have an Employee Education Program that consists of three pillars:
- Business Operations – including business operating systems, operating procedures, and company and industry understanding
- Platform Training – getting started with TradeStation, our products and services, and featured trading tools
- Markets and Trading – fundamentals of each asset class, understanding client behavior, and how our clients interact with each of our markets/products
Many business units also have unique training paths for their teams, with courses on both technical and soft skills that often go above and beyond what is required for the position. For example, many members of our Client Experience team maintain securities and commodity industry licenses such as the series 3, 7, SIE and 63 to enhance their knowledge and responsibility in our highly regulated environment.
Employees also receive regular compliance, anti-money laundering, and identity theft prevention training that is appropriate for their roles, as well as on topics such as IT and cyber security/data privacy.
Wellbeing
Fostering employee wellbeing benefits both employees and TradeStation as a company. Through wellbeing initiatives we can help alleviate stress, advocate for healthier lifestyles, and create an overall more positive work environment where our employees can thrive. We see good health and wellbeing as fundamental enablers of employee engagement and better performance.
At TradeStation, we are constantly evolving in our ways, working with employees as well as third parties to promote employee health and wellbeing. Regardless of seniority level, all employees are enrolled in our wellbeing initiatives, from flu shots to benefits associated with family care time-off, gym memberships, and workshops to help educate employees on the importance of health and wellbeing. We will continue to promote employee health and wellbeing through proactive engagement with employees and third parties, incorporating feedback into new and evolving initiatives.
We Appreciate Each Other through Our RAVE and Thanks! programs which recognize employees for outstanding performance via our employee intranet and through quarterly townhall meetings. In an effort to encourage employees to recognize outstanding performance, we have revised the process for rewarding employees, making it easier and more accessible on the web. Overall, we have seen an increase in participation in our employee rewards programs, fostering a culture of engagement and employee recognition when a fellow colleague is performing at a high level on a consistent basis, or just has done something special, or “above and beyond,” that should be called out.
