Corporate Social Responsibility - Brookline Bancorp, Inc.

Core Values at Brookline Bancorp

At Brookline Bancorp, we are focused on generating value for our stockholders. We do so via a business strategy that includes our four Core Values – Accountability, Leadership, Teamwork, and Adaptability.

Consistent with the requirements of our charter and state law, the Company’s business and affairs are managed by or under the direction of the Board of Directors. The Board’s responsibilities include overseeing the Company’s risk management, human capital management, and the efforts undertaken by the Company to meet the needs of the communities we serve, consistent with our business goals.

Across our Company and our banks, we engage in or support activities relating to charitable giving, volunteerism, and financial wellness.

Community Engagement

We believe in the value of investing our time, talent, and resources in the communities we serve; that the communities we serve are an integral part of our business success; and that it is the right thing to do to contribute time and resources to those who need it most. Our community engagement is focused around the following pillars:

Financial Wellness
Education
Affordable Housing
Food insecurity
Services for the Homeless and Low-Income Families
Holiday Giving

Examples of our Community Engagement include:

Financial Wellness - We support a variety of financial education programs through donations and employee volunteerism, as well as make available interactive educational tools to all of our banks’ website visitors.
Age-Friendly Banking - We are proud that Brookline Bank is the first bank to be certified for age-friendly banking through the City of Boston’s Age Strong Commission, an organization that provides guidance to older adults who may be affected by age-related issues such as vision and hearing loss. As part of this effort, branch employees at all of Brookline Bank’s locations have successfully completed the Age Strong Commission’s training program, which focuses on helping to prevent elder fraud and financial abuse as well as making life more inclusive for older adults.
Banking Services for the Disabled and Visually Impaired - We invest in technology that helps to ensure our digital information and services meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Many of our branch locations are wheelchair accessible and many of our ATMs offer “talking” ATM technology and feature braille orientation instructions.

Brookline Bancorp has a partnership with the AIRA Access Network, a visual interpreting service for blind and low-vision customers or for people who want access to objective visual information. This service is free for customers of Brookline Bank, Bank Rhode Island, and PCSB Bank and allows users to connect to the AIRA app on their mobile device or computer while conducting their banking. Customers can connect with trained professionals to receive verbal information on their surroundings and get help with tasks such as using the ATM, entering and moving around one of our banking offices or navigating within Online and Mobile Banking.

Community Giving and Volunteerism – Employees are encouraged to volunteer in the communities where we live and work.

Human Capital Management

We think Brookline is a great place to work – here’s why: we believe the success of our business is dependent on the success and wellness of our employees. We also believe our commitment to living out our core values includes actively prioritizing concern for our employees’ well-being, supporting their career goals, offering competitive wages, and providing valuable fringe benefits, which aids in the hiring and retention of top-performing employees. We do this through:

Talent Development - Offering internal and external opportunities for our employees to engage in educational programs that promote personal career growth. This includes internal training and career advancement opportunities as well as tuition reimbursement programs.
Employee Well-Being - Eligible employees are provided with the option to participate in our health and wellness plans and benefits from programs such as:

Group health (medical coverage), and individual and family dental and vision programs for which we pay a majority of the monthly premiums.
Group life, accidental death and dismemberment, and long-term disability insurance coverage.
A flexible benefit plan under which employees can pay their ratable share of health insurance premiums on a pre-tax basis, a medical expense reimbursement plan which allows employees to defer part of their salary on a pre-tax basis to cover the costs of certain medical expenses not reimbursed through insurance or otherwise.
A dependent care plan under which employees can defer part of their salary on a pre-tax basis to cover qualified dependent care expenses.
A transportation plan under which employees can defer part of their salary on a pre-tax basis for qualified parking and transportation expenses.
Through the Company’s 401(k) Plan, all participating employees are eligible to receive an annual match contribution equal to 100% of the first 5% of each employee’s eligible compensation up to the annual maximum statutory limit. This annual match provided by the Company vests immediately.

Employee Engagement - All employees and their managers complete annual employee performance reviews. Employees receive feedback from their managers throughout the year. We also obtain feedback from our employees through informal and formal surveys.

Ethics in Finance

As a publicly-traded bank holding company, it is imperative that we operate in full compliance of all laws, rules, and regulations. To that end, Company employees participate annually in a combination of live and virtual trainings. The scope of employee training is dependent on job function, however, all employees receive annual training on the Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, select Compliance regulations, and Information Security.