Remote hiring is here to stay.
More than two years since the Covid-19 pandemic erupted, tech companies face a radical shift in the ways employees view work. Back in the pandemic’s fraught early days, millions of people lost their jobs. Once the economy recovered, others reconsidered their career paths and voluntarily quit, in a mass exodus now known as the Great Resignation.
As they pursue talent in a highly competitive job market, recruiters have found that candidates have a different set of expectations than those that were considered common in a pre-pandemic workplace. For most, flexibility in how and where they work is top of mind, and the ability to work remotely part of the time is a must.
But while some workplaces have struggled to keep pace with this transformation, others see it as critical to hitting ambitious hiring goals.
At BentoBox, for example, recruiters are seeking to fill more than 100 positions in 2022 alone — Corporate Recruiter Ellen Sievert explained that all of their open roles can be performed remotely. As a fast-growing marketing and commerce company, going virtual during the pandemic made all the sense in the world, and improving its remote company culture has been a priority ever since.
“It was important to us to maintain an atmosphere of inclusion, especially as a distributed team,” said Sievert. “Now, that’s paying off.”
Built In NYC sat down with Sievert — as well as Maven Clinic Head of Recruiting Richie Laurenson and Galileo Lead Recruiter Kayla Kahl — to learn more about how remote hiring is changing the game for both companies and employees.
BentoBox helps restaurants elevate their online presence with website design, e-commerce and analytics tools. In transitioning to a hybrid working model, the fast-growing company seeks to strengthen its remote culture through a range of events and offerings that emphasize BentoBox’s passionate, collaborative team spirit.
Which teams are expanding the most at BentoBox? What proportion of your open positions are available to remote workers?
My primary focus is on marketing, revenue operations and business operations roles, but we have opportunities in every department. Something I love to chat with prospective candidates about is the growth we are expecting over the next year at BentoBox. In 2022, we plan to hire over 100 new employees across customer success, sales, marketing, design, biz ops, rev ops, engineering and product. The best part? 100 percent of those roles are open to remote workers.
We have BentoBox employees nationwide. We are all about flexibility and workplace autonomy. Our headquarters is located in downtown Manhattan, and all are welcome there, but employees also have the option of grabbing a permanent or temporary “hot desk” at one of 30-plus office locations throughout the U.S. And to accommodate our employees across time zones, we leverage a core hours system — 11 a.m.- 5 p.m. ET. Outside of that, how and when you work is largely up to you.
What did you change about the hiring process to better accommodate remote applicants?
All of our roles are marked as “remote” across our job boards, and this is also touched on in the benefits section of our job descriptions. We send out a beautifully branded and designed one-sheet to candidates, to get them prepared for the interview process, set expectations around timelines and reassure them that we don’t mind if a furry friend pops in to say hello. Our entire recruiting team is remote, and we’re proud to say we have a talent acquisition partner in each time zone across the U.S. This allows us to really speak to the remote culture at BentoBox and to ease any concerns candidates may have around connectivity or remote collaboration. We utilize a combination of Zoom and phone calls for all our interviews and have made an effort to consolidate the process, leveraging interview panels to keep things moving and engaging when a candidate cannot meet the team in person. Fortunately, we are a passionate bunch, and that shines through, even over a video chat.
We’re proud to say we have a talent acquisition partner in each time zone across the U.S.’’
How has the onboarding process shifted to ensure offsite employees feel welcomed and engaged?
We take a hospitality-first approach to everything we do — and that begins by welcoming new hires well before their first day. Prior to starting, a new employee receives introduction emails to relevant colleagues, setup instructions for their tech and home office, a $500 remote work stipend and a fun BentoBox swag pack.
Once they’ve started, we utilize Donut to facilitate cross-functional introductions. This Slack plugin pairs new hires with teammates for virtual coffee chats, sends out onboarding-related reminders and fires off Bento-related facts. But it’s not all about the tech. Since going fully remote, we’ve added headcount to our IT and enablement teams, to provide white-glove service and get our new hires started on the right foot.
To maintain connectivity, BentoBox managers are committed to a weekly one-on-one with their employees, as well as regular team meetings, and we’ve kept up our weekly all hands meeting, which centers completely around employee appreciation.
A telemedicine-based virtual clinic for women’s and family health, Maven offers fertility, adoption, surrogacy, pregnancy, parenting and pediatric services. During the pandemic, its own family of employees — whom head recruiter Richie Laurenson affectionately calls “Mavens” — grew dramatically; the company’s been keeping pace with a hybrid work model and regular remote-focused improvements.
Which teams are expanding the most at Maven Clinic? What proportion of your open positions are available to remote workers?
Today, we’re made up of over 350 “Mavens” with clients of all sizes, supporting millions of people as we work to change the health of the world — one woman, one family at a time. And we’re growing. We aim to expand to have more than 600 Mavens by the end of the year.
We anticipate the most headcount growth on our engineering, product, clinical services, marketing, growth and care advocacy teams. Expanding these areas will increase our capacity to deliver care, walk through walls and keep healthcare human. All of our roles have the option to be remote, except for in-office roles like office managers, IT and facilities teams.
What did you change about the hiring process to better accommodate remote applicants?
Our approach to creating an inclusive hiring process for remote applicants has been to continuously listen and learn. While some Maven teams have always been remote, there was a lot to be done to better accommodate a distributed team at scale, and we moved fast to make that happen.
The first step was to create a remote work policy that could be clearly communicated internally and externally. We published content about our philosophy, trained hiring managers and interviewers on virtual interview etiquette and introduced reimagined benefits for a remote setting, including a work-from-home setup stipend, virtual events and activities.
We know how hard it must be for remote candidates to make such a big decision without meeting people in-person, so we create spaces for them to ask questions and learn more about us. We provide resources to help them make their best decision, and we even let them choose interviewers in some cases. We want to make sure we’re building good relationships with every candidate.
New hires at Maven are celebrated by the full team, no matter where they sit.’’
How has the onboarding process shifted to ensure offsite employees feel welcomed and engaged?
New hires at Maven are celebrated by the full team, no matter where they sit. All new hire classes take part in the same three-day orientation, and employees are given the option to join virtually or at one of our offices. Through this orientation, they’re introduced to one another, our culture, teams and ways of working. Each new Maven goes through a more personalized onboarding experience within their team, and we’ve created resources to guide managers through onboarding remote Mavens.
Like many, we’ve been navigating a remote culture for two years and have learned continuously along the way. Remote onboarding can be a lot. To better support new Mavens, we’ve built out Notion pages to house important information and resources, and we prioritize highlighting virtual connectivity opportunities during onboarding, such as virtual “coffee roulette” and a remote Slack channel. Each onboarding class is also added to a dedicated Slack channel with our people team, which serves as a platform for questions and an opportunity to connect with other new Mavens. Once settled, new Mavens are announced and welcomed in our weekly All Maven Meeting and newsletter, where they’re introduced and flooded with love in our Zoom chat.
The importance of Galileo’s mission — to provide high-quality, accessible health care to all — was brought into sharp focus by the pandemic. As the healthtech startup pivoted to a virtual work model, Lead Recruiter Kayla Kahl said remote hiring became a high priority.
Which teams are expanding the most at Galileo? What proportion of your open positions are available to remote workers?
We primarily care for patients through our mobile application, so we are always hiring a number of virtual clinicians, virtual patient support associates and engineers. Over 75 percent of our openings are available for remote workers, with the exception of roles that provide in-person care, as those providers have to be more localized.
We are always hiring a number of virtual clinicians, virtual patient support associates and engineers.’’
What did you change about the hiring process to better accommodate remote applicants?
All of our team interviews are conducted over Zoom. This enables us to be as flexible as possible with candidate availability. It also mirrors the working dynamic of our dispersed teams. Since a lot of candidates will be working remotely, it also gives us a way to assess if they will be an effective remote employee. We are also looking into new tools to help us assess and engage remote talent more efficiently.
How has the onboarding process shifted to ensure offsite employees feel welcomed and engaged?
Prior to onboarding, we send every new hire a welcome kit with company swag. This way, on their first day of work, they’ll have a tangible connection to Galileo. We also recently expanded our onboarding to a two-day experience through which new hires have more opportunity to connect with members of their cohort, meet leaders from across the organization and hear them speak about both the Galileo mission and other key components of the business. This is a virtual-first experience.
