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Attracting and Retaining the Best Talent

Our success depends on our ability to attract and retain talented, productive and skilled brokers, professionals, managers, other employees and independent contractors to transact with our clients in a challenging and regulated environment that is experiencing ever-increasing competition for talent. We are investing in creating a diverse, inclusive and incentivized work environment where our people can deliver their best work every day.

Flexible, Safe and Empowering Work Environment

In order to retain and hire additional workforce, we have increased our flexible work arrangements, where appropriate, and made compensation adjustments, established additional corporate opportunities and provided additional benefits, including 401(k) match.

We have taken significant measures to develop a safe work environment for all employees, which is conducive to work in our office locations, particularly for front-office brokers and revenue generating employees, subject to applicable state and local regulatory requirements. We have established a more flexible hybrid approach in many instances for non-revenue generating roles or for roles which are not office dependent, where appropriate. We have established vaccination requirements in accordance with applicable laws, including time-off for vaccines, coverage for COVID-19 testing and enhanced sick leave.

We continue to take significant steps to protect our employees and encourage them all to be vaccinated.

Performance-Based and Highly Retentive Compensation Structure

Virtually all our key executives and producers have equity or partnership stakes in the Company and its subsidiaries. Generally, they receive deferred equity, limited partnership units or restricted stock units as part of their compensation. As of December 31, 2021, our employees and independent contractors, partners, executive officers and directors owned approximately 24% of our equity on a fully diluted basis.

We issue limited partnership units and other forms of equity-based compensation, such as restricted stock units, which:

• Provide liquidity to our partners and employees over time;
• Align the interests of our partners and employees and management with those of common stockholders;
• Help motivate and retain key partners and employees; and
• Encourage a collaborative culture that drives cross-selling and growth.

The non-exchangeable partnership units held by our partners are subject to forfeiture (such as if the non-compete, confidentiality or non-solicit provisions of the Newmark Holdings limited partnership agreement are violated), and unvested restricted stock units are subject to service conditions that must be met in order for them to vest into shares of Newmark common stock. In addition, any partnership amounts paid following termination of service generally are paid over a number of years to ensure compliance with post-termination partner obligations. This compensation structure has proven to be highly retentive.

We also enter into various agreements with certain employees, independent contractors and partners. Many of these individuals receive loans which may be either wholly or in part repaid from the earnings distributions that the individual receives on some or all of their LPUs or may be forgiven over time. These loans provide incentives and promote entrepreneurship and long-term engagement.

Employee Diversity, Inclusion and Equal Opportunity

We believe that by cultivating a dynamic mix of people and ideas, we enrich the performance of our businesses, the experience of our increasingly diverse employee base, and our unique communities. We are committed to equal opportunity, diversity and other policies and practices that seek to further our development of a diverse and inclusive workplace. We consider all qualified applicants for job openings and promotions without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin or ancestry, age, disability, service in the armed forces, or any other characteristic that has no bearing on the ability of employees to do their jobs well. We continue to develop initiatives to support these values and have implemented a policy that requires the inclusion of qualified, diverse candidates in the final round of interviews for leadership roles.

We are dedicated to our efforts to achieve pay equity. Our promotion and compensation processes are designed to enable us to treat employees fairly, and our compensation decisions are differentiated based on performance.

IDEA: Inclusion, Diversity, Equality and Access

Talent remains at the core of who we are as a company, and we remain committed to having a culture built around inclusion, equality and developing a diverse workforce. In 2020, we launched IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equality and Access), a program designed to enhance our ability to attract, develop and retain top talent with an emphasis on increasing representation of traditionally underrepresented groups at all levels of the organization. Our goal is to build an even more successful organization that more closely reflects the population at large.

We are helping to shape future leaders from a wide variety of backgrounds. We actively participate in various initiatives, including the following:

• Participation in the Mortgage Bankers Association Path to Diversity Scholarship Program;
• Sponsorship of the Summer Enrichment and Analyst Development Programs run by Artemis Real Estate Partners, a female-owned financial firm with a strong track record in fostering diversity; and
• Platinum Level Sponsorship of the virtual internship program run by the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) in partnership with the City University of New York (CUNY) and Project Destined.

We further participate in job fairs and job boards that are focused on reaching a diverse applicant pool. We are also an investor in a commercial real estate services firm that operates as E Smith Advisors, which is a certified minority-owned business enterprise offering a wide variety of real estate services in the U.S.

Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)

Our employee resource groups (“ERGs”) support the recruitment, development and retention of diverse professionals across our organization to advance our businesses and reputation. Our current ERGs are the Asian Pacific American Community, the Black Employee Network, the Latin American/Hispanic ERG, the Military Veterans ERG, Newmark Pride and the Network of Women. Our ERGs strive to offer a variety of opportunities and tools to help our employees make new professional contacts, find mentors and develop their careers. These events and activities also allow our employees to support one another through a valuable exchange of experiences, advice, and best practices for career success.

Employee Engagement, Communication, Management and Leadership Training and Development

We are investing in our employees’ long-term development and engagement by delivering training and development programs and a culture where our people can thrive and maximize their potential. We require annual training in workplace respect and inclusion, anti-money laundering and anti-crime and cyber-security among other topics. We also provide or support periodic job-specific and other developmental training and support for our employees so they can maximize their potential, as well as a tuition reimbursement program to eligible employees.

We provide leadership training to managers on topics, including management effectiveness, writing and delivering effective performance evaluations, unconscious bias and various other topics. This training is supplemented by a comprehensive library of on-line training courses that managers and employees may access. Finally, our individual business lines offer ongoing learning and development opportunities tied to deepening the subject matter expertise of their professionals.

Charitable Policies and Practices

Never has our commitment to our people and others been so evident as in our corporate giving and charitable work. Honoring the events of September 11, 2001, the Company currently matches 100% of individual employee donations to The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund made in September of each year up to $5,000 per individual employee. Employees have the option of designating a bona-fide charity as the beneficiary of the donation and the match. Additional charitable initiatives are in effect from time to time.

In 2022, Newmark announced a Ukraine relief program with the Company matching 100% of employee, broker and client donations up to $1 million to the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund to support direct relief efforts through charity partners in neighboring countries.

Newmark actively encourages our brokers, managers and other employees to support the communities in which we live and operate through volunteerism and philanthropy. In 2021, we supported hospitals, universities, food banks and community-based organizations focused on childhood development and education and programs for the disabled, families and the financially disadvantaged. Some of the charities include: American Cancer Society, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boys & Girls Clubs, Breaking Ground, Community Builders, Creative Art Works, Food First, Homes Fit for Heroes, LA Regional Food Bank, Junior Achievement, Medal of Honor Museum, National Kidney Foundation, Northern Virginia Family Services, Pace University and United Jewish Appeal.

We actively encourage volunteerism from our people and we proudly support our clients in their charitable efforts. To encourage our professionals to engage in civic and charitable efforts, we have a matching program for charities that fit within Newmark’s overall charitable mission.

As part of these values in action, we offer a Volunteer Time Off program to support individual employee volunteerism in the communities in which they work and live. All full and part-time regular employees are eligible to utilize one paid workday (whole day or two half-days) each calendar year to volunteer with bona fide charitable organizations of their choice. Participation is growing and as office life normalizes and pandemic measures begin to recede, we will encourage broader use of this benefit and participation by employees in charitable and community service activities within all of our office communities.