As a company that helps education organizations drive enrollments through advertising, Grow Enrollments knows firsthand how much of a strain, both financially and psychologically, college loans can be. That’s why the six-year-old firm provides student loan debt assistance to employees who have worked there for at least two years. The $1,500 reimbursement is meant to help lighten the stress of college debt. Grow Enrollments also offers up to $3,000 toward continuing education classes for staffers.

Those benefits helped Grow Enrollments be ranked as No. 1 among companies with 200 or fewer employees in Ad Age Best Places to Work 2021.

The New York-based company puts the mental health of its 28 employees at the forefront of its benefits—something that became all the more crucial in 2020 as the company shifted from a focus on enrollments in brick-and-mortar universities to online education due to the pandemic’s effect on the industry.

Grow Enrollments, which provided monetary support to employees to get their home offices ready amid the transition last year to a work-from-home operation, checks in on employees every week in wellness checks. The reason for these calls is not just to see how staffers are handling working remotely and the transitions caused by the health crisis—the calls are also a way to connect with employees on a more personal level by talking about new interests like hobbies or books.

“We take time to check in on one another,” says Benjamin Arabov, chief executive of Grow Enrollments.