How These Local Companies Stand Out in a Rapidly Changing Work Environment

Mindbloom didn’t wait for a reality-distorting pandemic to change its remote-work culture. 

The NYC-based healthtech company has allowed employees to work from home since its inception in 2018, recruiting talent from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, India and Costa Rica to build a roster uninhibited by the confines of a single geographic location. 

Now the rest of the industry is catching up. Spurred by the uncertainty caused by Covid-19, the decline of the physical office in favor of personal safety has led to a crowded field among organizations vying for jobseekers’ attention. 

That’s why Built In NYC checked in with five local tech professionals: to learn how they’re staying ahead of the curve now that remote work has become the new normal.

 

 

Tell us a bit about your current remote workforce. What plans do you have to expand it? 

Like many companies, daily in-person interactions seemed critical to running our business and maintaining company culture. But the Covid-19 pandemic forced us to explore the world of remote work. Over the course of several months, we found that our teams were actually thriving in a remote environment, and we recognized that a distributed workforce offered significant strategic benefits for our business and our talent. With the belief that distributed work would continue to be a competitive advantage and a boon for our people, we made the decision to shift to a fully distributed-first company. We now have more than 400 Happy Money team members across 30 states — and we’re also hiring in Canada. 

We found that our teams were actually thriving in a remote environment.”

 

How do you help remote employees feel connected, engaged and supported? 

Happy Money’s team includes employees all across the United States. Since we don’t have a physical HQ, we’ve invested heavily in technology and resources to help team members stay connected and engaged wherever they are. Our HQ in the cloud contains helpful resources and inspiring content, we communicate regularly and asynchronously via Slack, our executive leadership team sends weekly emails with vital business updates, and we get together monthly for a virtual companywide meetings where we celebrate wins and learn from each other. That culture of learning is represented in everything we do. Drawing on our values of love, trust and hustle, we’ve embraced a growth mindset and are fostering a radically inclusive culture that ensures everyone belongs and has the opportunity to learn from each other. From weeklong events like our “reset” wellness program and “equality week” to our daily interactions, we’re intentional about helping all Happy Money employees feel supported and welcome to bring their most authentic selves to work.

 

 

 

Tell us a bit about your current remote workforce. What plans do you have to expand it? 

Mindbloom has been a remote-first company since its founding in 2018 — before it was cool! When I started at Mindbloom in January 2021, we numbered less than 30. As we enter 2022, we’re at more than 300! We continue to experience exponential growth, which is amazing because it means we’re able to transform even more lives. 

 

 

How do you help remote employees feel connected, engaged and supported? 

Our work culture is remote-first, prose-based and asynchronous. This means we make a lot of our decisions through writing docs, limit meetings when possible and don’t have set working hours. Bloomineers work when they are the most inspired, whether they’re early birds or night owls. 

To foster meaningful connections, we have two annual in-person events. One is a magical company retreat, where we meet everyone cross-departmentally and enjoy a transformative weekend together. The other is a department-focused offsite meeting, where we further connect with the people we work closest with. 

In between our annual in-person meetings, we engage virtually through Bloomineer Integration Circles, thoughtful e-cards for birthdays and other milestones, and our casual conversation team channels on topics such as music, podcasts, books, client stories and shout-outs.

We also support our Bloomineers’ mental health by discounting the Mindbloom program to a total of $100. We want Bloomineers to not only utilize Mindbloom as a vehicle for their professional development, but in their personal development as well.

Bloomineers work when they are the most inspired, whether they’re early birds or night owls.”

 

 

 

 

Tell us a bit about your current remote workforce. What plans do you have to expand it? 

Among Carbyne’s wonderful team of 165 employees, 42 of them work remotely. Truth is, we’ve been this way since before the pandemic. Trendsetters much? 

Why? We believe that limiting our employees to a single geographical location creates barriers to bringing in a diverse workforce. To make Carbyne a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace, we set out to hire people from all backgrounds and geographies. 

Limiting our employees to a single geographical location creates barriers to bringing in a diverse workforce.”

 

How do you help remote employees feel connected, engaged and supported? 

At Carbyne, we’ve created impact guilds to connect our employees to each other and scale our culture remotely. Each guild is made up of people from different departments who work together on a different element of Carbyne’s culture. 

For example, we have a buddy program that connects each new employee to a tenured employee who serves as a friend and mentor during their first few weeks. We also have a culture group that meets monthly to plan and discuss ideas for improving Carbyne’s culture. 

These impact guilds help to not only scale Carbyne’s culture, but also connect employees who would not work together otherwise. 

 

 

 

Tell us a bit about your current remote workforce. What plans do you have to expand it? 

We strongly believe in a person’s ability to understand where they work best. Our “flexible forward” approach to work has helped to nurture our remote Botifyers. Employees have three options for working at Botify: fully remote, a hybrid-work model from home and in the office, and fully in the office. 

As we project to grow even more this year, we have put a greater emphasis on hiring the best talent, wherever that talent lives. Our two U.S. locations are in NYC and Seattle, but we have been hiring new Botifyers all over the country and will continue our flexible approach for our hiring in 2022 and beyond.

Flexibility is the future.”

 

How do you help remote employees feel connected, engaged and supported? 

Our remote culture gets stronger with each new remote Botifyer we hire. We have Slack channels dedicated to our fully remote Botifyers, as well as fully remote virtual events like murder mystery parties and trivia nights. We also bring our remote employees with us to in-office happy hours by connecting them virtually to our kitchen so they can hang out via Zoom with Botifyers in the office. 

Our virtual events extend to all of our hybrid Botifyers as well, with events like our customer success team remotely making pretzels together or the executive team hosting a fully remote offsite meeting. We also have a remote stipend so our remote Botifyers can set up their home offices to be comfortable. Flexibility is the future, and making sure we incorporate that into every aspect of our day-to-day working lives will only improve the employee experience.

 

 

 

Tell us a bit about your current remote workforce. What plans do you have to expand it? 

ChartHop is 100 percent remote and plans on remaining that way as we expand the company. My team started in July as three employees, and we expect to grow to 15 by the end of February and even more over the next several years. Every team in the company is fully remote and has embraced talent across the country.

Every team in the company is fully remote and has embraced talent across the country.”

 

How do you help remote employees feel connected, engaged and supported? 

ChartHop has truly embraced the remote culture and taken significant steps to keep employees engaged by means of Zoom get-togethers, virtual meetings and other engagement activities.  Every month, we have non-work-related activities where we can meet as a team and blow off some steam. These activities have included tea brewing, mixology, candle making and more.  Additionally, we have the opportunity for occasional get-togethers with other employees who are in our general geographic area. During work hours we have quarterly luncheons where we are paired with other employees in different teams and we can have lunch delivered and just sit down, talk and get to know each other better.  

I was with a large international company before, and the difference in how ChartHop manages the remote workforce is extremely different and much improved over my previous employer. It doesn’t matter if we are in New York, California or Amsterdam, we are all one large team and truly work together as one.