After two tumultuous years of marching boldly into the unknown while navigating a pandemic, unprecedented times in the tech industry are finally starting to feel precedented.
Between maneuvering the switch to remote work overnight and adjusting employee support systems around ever-evolving health mandates, it hasn’t been an easy ride. But with U.S. Covid-19 vaccinations and booster shot percentages on the rise, people are finally feeling more at ease in their new routines working from home both personally and professionally. The Great Resignation pushed individuals to strive for roles that connected with their passions. A career no longer had to resemble being stuck in an office building — it could be synonymous with freedom.
So instead of waiting for the world to “go back to normal,” people teams have begun accepting our current reality at face value and implementing more permanent remote policies to reap future benefits. In fact, 56% of global employers currently offer at least a partial remote work option according to Built In’s research, and companies are showing no signs of slowing down on remote transitions as we embark on 2022.
“Our remote expansion has increased our diversity, grown our skills and improved our morale,” said Jewel von Kempf, head of people at Coinme. “We intend to keep our options open and not limit the talent pool.”
To get a better sense of the current state of remote work within the tech industry, Built In Seattle caught up with five people leaders with impressive hiring plans for the new year. Going remote has not only allowed employees to embrace a new sense of flexibility in their roles, but reinforced the tight-knit sense of camaraderie woven throughout their company cultures — regardless of individual GPS coordinates.
Tell us a bit about your current remote workforce. What plans do you have to expand it?
Symbl.ai is an internationally distributed team working together to solve the most complex problems in human conversation. We are a multicultural team of smart, humble and driven innovators who are constantly leveling up personally and professionally. We are curious, tenacious and resilient. We champion diversity and strive to create conditions that provide everyone with the opportunity to thrive. We move fast, stay aligned, and prioritize connection and growth.
Our recent Series A financing is empowering us to rapidly expand the team! We’re actively hiring across product, engineering, sales and marketing. We’re specifically excited to educate developers about conversation intelligence and continue to pioneer the future of communication experiences.
While all of our positions are geographically flexible, most of the U.S. team is distributed across the Pacific and Mountain Standard times zones. We keep a physical office in Seattle. During lulls in the pandemic, we offer a flexible hybrid environment for those who thrive spending time in person.
We are mission-driven tech enthusiasts striving to unlock the knowledge and insights in human interactions at scale.
We are intentional about ensuring that we connect and not just transact.”
Describe your remote work culture. How do you help remote employees feel connected, engaged and supported?
We are intentional about ensuring that we connect and not just transact.
Remote work can far too often digress into purely transactional exchanges. We engage weekly, monthly and quarterly in events to balance remote dynamics. We spend time playing and having fun together. We’ve actually held two in-person team-building offsites during lulls in Covid-19 spikes where it was optional attendance but mandatory vaccine and a negative test required for those who choose to come.
When the company or individuals achieve milestones but Covid-19 spikes prevent in-person gatherings, or when we haven’t been able to celebrate as a company, we get creative. In the past, we’ve sent the employee and their family out to celebrate together.
Beyond remote specific initiatives, we also engage and support employees with professional development, like education, training and external coaching. We provide immigration support that someone may need while in the United States or when moving to the U.S. Regarding growth opportunities, we promote internally and we’ve even created new roles to support long-term career growth plans.
Tell us a bit about your current remote workforce. What plans do you have to expand it?
Trupanion is committed to hiring almost entirely remotely in 2022!
There are a few exceptions for select roles, like in facilities or finance where handling equipment or mail on-site is required. There are also some folks who simply enjoy coming into the office to see co-workers or cats and doggos, or who take advantage of the on-site daycare. So on-site work will certainly remain an option for those who need or want to come into the office. But for most of our workforce, remote work is the preferred or only way to get the job done and we’re here for it.
We’re especially excited about continuing to expand our care and claims teams all over the U.S. and Canada. Trupanion already had a strong remote workforce prior to 2020, which set us up for success — and record hiring — in 2021. In 2022, we’ll continue our commitment to hiring pet-passionate and skilled talent regardless of location.
For most of our workforce, remote work is the preferred or only way to get the job done and we’re here for it.”
Describe your remote work culture. How do you help remote employees feel connected, engaged and supported?
If there are areas where Trupanion really excels, it’s being adaptable and pet friendly — for our employees and our customers. Our number one focus after shifting almost entirely remote was to make sure our IT support team was staffed up and supported with great leadership in order to quickly respond to any connection or at-home working snafus.
We’ve enhanced and shifted our benefits offerings to be more targeted toward remote work. In that vein, our pet program team is developing online learning for employees to combat some of the most common work-from-home pet issues, like stress-induced cat scratching and separation anxiety in dogs. We also have a pet program leader with a master’s degree in pet behavior who offers one-on-one virtual coaching with employees to help make their work-from-home setup with their furry coworkers as peaceful and productive as possible.
Trupanion is focused on being a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace for all employees, remote or otherwise. In 2021 we hired a dedicated diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging resource. Employees also formed three new employee resource groups meant for employees to find connection, community and resources.
Tell us a bit about your current remote workforce. What plans do you have to expand it?
Our workforce is currently spread throughout the country, operating remotely in various roles. As we enter 2022, we have plans to continue expanding. We are hiring in almost every department, with new and exciting positions being added frequently.
We are hyper-focused on hiring within our engineering and outside sales departments over the course of the next few months. Our engineering team is growing with many open positions located in the Dallas area. In outside sales, we are hiring in cities across the country, and we are looking for people who want to make a difference in their communities while embarking on a rewarding career.
Our culture team works hard to ensure that our employees feel supported each day.”
Describe your remote work culture. How do you help remote employees feel connected, engaged and supported?
Here at Snap! Mobile, we are extremely proud of our remote work culture. Our focus is on the employee experience, and our culture team works hard to ensure that our employees feel engaged and supported each day. Our “Achieve Wellness” program is focused on the physical and mental health of our team, and they host monthly wellness events for all employees such as yoga, fitness classes and self-care classes such as aromatherapy and painting.
Our culture team also offers opportunities for employees to connect through group trivia nights, virtual escape rooms, pizza Fridays and much more. In addition to engaging events, we like to bring our employees together through learning and development, and we are proud to offer learning course subscriptions to our employees as well as a new mentorship program which is launching in 2022.
Tell us a bit about your current remote workforce. What plans do you have to expand it?
Coinme has grown to 18 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces over the past two years. Our remote expansion has increased our diversity, grown our skills and improved our morale. We have a dynamic hiring plan for 2022, including hiring globally. We intend to keep our options open and not limit the talent pool. Instead, with a strong focus on growing our engineering and product teams, we look forward to the diversity in thought and process gained from a worldwide team.
We see the cultivation of culture as an ever-evolving process that genuinely delights us.”
Describe your remote work culture. How do you help remote employees feel connected, engaged and supported?
With a fundamental culture of friendlessness at Coinme, connection as a remote culture is more organic than some. Slack is our daily lifeline. It connects us personally via weekly shoutouts, games, riddle challenges and more. Simply put, we have fun!
All new hires are welcomed via email and our monthly company meeting, instilling a sense of inclusion and belonging. We are a “camera on” culture, aiding in our communication and engagement. In alignment with our values, employees are encouraged to seek out company-paid development opportunities, drive culture, practice work-life balance, and be transparent regarding their needs. We see the cultivation of culture as an ever-evolving process that genuinely delights us.
Tell us a bit about your current remote workforce. What plans do you have to expand it?
We currently have employees working remotely all across the U.S. Our HQ is still in Seattle and we have made the office available to local employees, but we don’t currently require anyone to come into the office — nor do we plan to in the future. Employees have shared the positive impact that remote work has had on both their professional and personal lives and we want to continue to provide that balance and flexibility.
This year we are planning on expanding our business while investing heavily in our clients and technology, which means we’re going to be hiring for our business development, client success and technology teams.
Employees have shared the positive impact that remote work has had on both their professional and personal lives.”
Describe your remote work culture. How do you help remote employees feel connected, engaged and supported?
Remote work was completely new to us and the transition was pretty seamless, but we’re still figuring things out. Connection is key for Ideoclick and nurturing that in a virtual world has been a challenge. Our teams have been great about getting together for virtual happy hours and lunches and we’ve been sure to gather as a company for our all-hands meetings on a monthly cadence. We’ve done different virtual events that are family friendly so our employees and their families can all enjoy, like virtual scavenger hunts, escape rooms, concerts, and most recently a magic show — this was a big hit!
Our company is extremely feedback-driven, so we encourage our team members to share their thoughts; what went well, what was a miss, and support any ideas they have to stay connected and create meaningful relationships. Employees are also asked to share feedback in monthly surveys to keep a pulse on how everyone is doing, feeling and where they need support. We support our employees’ success — wherever they work.
