Living through the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us a lot of things, but one of the best new nuggets of knowledge is this: remote work is awesome.
Of course, working from home doesn’t suit every employee or role, but many have embraced the practice for any number of reasons. According to statistics from business information provider SmallBizGenius, many workers prioritize remote-work opportunities over pay raises and vacation time. Some even value it more than staying in their current jobs. One in four employees told researchers in 2021 that they would quit if they could no longer telecommute.
Some of the most surprising advantages of remote work, though, accrue to the companies that implement it. Research from Owl Labs revealed that 90 percent of employees who worked from home during the pandemic said they were just as, if not more productive than they had been in the office. Contrary to fears, remote workers procrastinated less and were happier and healthier overall. On top of that, the prevalence of remote work allows businesses to hire all across the country — and the world — to get the best available talent.
These Colorado companies understand the value of a remote workforce — being either fully remote or remote-first — and are implementing thoughtful hiring and onboarding processes to start their employees off on the right foot in this new work format. Built In Colorado sat down with JumpCloud, Pie Insurance, American Auto Shield, Personal Capital and FluentStream to learn more about how they take care of their remote hires.
JumpCloud is a cloud-based directory platform that gives remote employees access to corporate data.
Which teams are expanding the most at JumpCloud? What proportion of your open positions are available to remote workers?
As a SaaS company in the cloud directory space, we’re constantly adding new roles on our engineering teams. In 2022, we’ll see our business systems support, finance and sales teams grow as well. Recently, new roles have also been posted for our professional services and customer support groups. JumpCloud has started to scale its global expansion, so we’re now hiring for remote roles in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific regions.
Ninety-nine percent of our roles at JumpCloud are available for remote work; the few that aren’t are those that directly support our physical offices in the Denver area.
What did you change about the hiring process to better accommodate remote applicants?
We moved to fully remote hiring in June 2020, like many other companies, and we’ve been scaling every month since then. Creating success with our remote hiring processes has, at the core, focused on consistent communication. This includes always letting candidates know where they are in the process, having one source to collect feedback and making sure interviewers have clarity on their role in the cycle. JumpCloud is constantly reviewing its hiring practices to see where we can evolve to create better experiences for our candidates.
Creating success with our remote hiring processes has, at the core, focused on consistent communication.”
How has the onboarding process shifted to ensure off-site employees feel welcomed and engaged?
We added more social time for each onboarding class. Since our classes combine new team members from across the organization around the world, we wanted to give them more time to engage and get to know each other. The relationships formed during those initial days inside JumpCloud give them resources — and friends — to reach out to outside their core working groups as they get deeper into their roles in the organization. We’ve also really pushed to integrate diversity into how we present our content, leveraging our new learning management software to include self-paced learning alongside virtual hosted sessions. We have always had a lot of virtual face-to-face interaction, but especially with the international expansion, we’ve had to get more creative with delivering that content to folks in ways that work for their schedules.
Pie provides a commercial insurance marketplace for small businesses.
Which teams are expanding the most at Pie Insurance? What proportion of your open positions are available to remote workers?
Pie is expanding across all of our teams — most notably in engineering, product, people and talent, marketing, analytics, and underwriting — and the vast majority of our roles are open to remote workers based in the United States. A very small percentage of our roles have some in-office requirements, such as executive assistants and IT support.
What did you change about the hiring process to better accommodate remote applicants?
Pie transitioned to 100 percent virtual interviewing via Zoom in early 2020 because most of our candidates were familiar with the platform. To ensure a smooth process, we began calling each candidate prior to their interviews to answer any questions they had about virtual interviewing, as well as ensuring they had Zoom set up and ready to go. We wanted our candidates to know an actual human was there to help shepherd them through the process in case of any hiccups.
We’re also more flexible with scheduling, allowing candidates to interview on their lunch breaks or before and after work — a luxury we didn’t always have when they were coming into an office for a portion of their day. As we’ve gotten used to virtual interviewing and remote work, Pie’s recruiters and hiring managers have become better equipped to speak to our remote- and hybrid-friendly work arrangements.
We wanted our candidates to know an actual human was there to help shepherd them through the process.”
How has the onboarding process shifted to ensure off-site employees feel welcomed and engaged?
In February 2020, only 6 percent of our workforce was fully remote. Today, it’s 43 percent. While I don’t know if we expected such a dramatic increase at the time, we knew we needed to do everything we could to ensure team members starting at Pie remotely felt welcomed.
The first thing we implemented was our Pie Pal program, where we match incoming new hires with seasoned employees — who we call Pie-oneers. We wanted to make sure our new team members had a way to meet Pie-oneers outside of their direct team. In addition, we wanted our new hires to immediately feel a part of the team, so we quickly collaborated with our swag vendor to ensure each new Pie-oneer would receive a welcome kit, as well as implementing a work-from-home stipend for new hires to make sure their home office had everything they needed to succeed.
Hiring managers welcome each new team member to Pie with a Slack post that includes their picture, what they will be doing at Pie and a few fun facts. Our team looks forward to each of these announcements and are quick to reply with a warm welcome.
American Auto Shield specializes in vehicle service contract development and automotive claims administration.
Which teams are expanding the most at American Auto Shield? What proportion of your open positions are available to remote workers?
Our contact center workforce, comprised of customer service representatives and claims adjusters, has expanded exponentially over the last three years. As a result, all other teams — including learning and development, people services, accounting, and IT — have expanded to meet functional support demands. Our company has also invested heavily in training resources and technology to ensure our remote employees are set up for success.
Currently, all positions are remote except for our office management and shipping teams. Our entire company shifted from a traditional workplace environment in 2020, with four office locations, to fully virtual, expanding to 12 states. We are meeting employees where they are, eliminating barriers to employment and diversifying our workforce.
What did you change about the hiring process to better accommodate remote applicants?
We shifted the entire hiring process to accommodate a remote environment. Our interview process leverages virtual technology and creates a seamless candidate experience. All applications, interviews and pre-employment tests can be completed from the comfort of the candidate’s home using mobile technology.
Today, we leverage virtual technology to create a seamless new-hire experience from paperwork to formal training.”
How has the onboarding process shifted to ensure off-site employees feel welcomed and engaged?
Prior to our transition to remote, all new-hire paperwork was completed in an office on the employee’s first day. Their first week consisted of on-the-job training sessions with limited structure.
Today, we leverage virtual technology to create a seamless new-hire experience from paperwork to formal training. Our onboarding program guides new hires and their managers to connect even prior to the start date and then through the first 90 days. Our employee engagement platform facilitates engagement between new hires and their coworkers from the first day welcome to frequent celebrations of individual and team accomplishments.
Personal Capital is a digital wealth management organization.
Which teams are expanding the most at Personal Capital? What proportion of your open positions are available to remote workers?
It’s an exciting time to join Personal Capital. We are actively hiring and expect to see new opportunities increase as we release new functionalities through our integration with Empower Retirement.
Currently, our engineering and advisory services teams are expanding the most. We’re expanding our software engineering team at all levels, and we’re continuing to add financial advisors on our service team to work with our rapidly expanding client base.
Personal Capital is a remote-first company. Our culture and tech platform were built to support a virtual environment, and we have shown phenomenal productivity while working remotely. We will continue to support working remotely and recruit and retain the best talent regardless of geographical location.
What did you change about the hiring process to better accommodate remote applicants?
As our company shifted from working on-site to fully remote, our hiring process adapted to support that. We balance both phone and video interviews to allow candidates to speak with multiple members of our hiring team, and we’ve continued to adjust our process to ensure that hiring is efficient while still providing plenty of opportunities for candidates to learn about both roles and the company. We’re currently exploring additional ways for candidates to learn about company culture outside of the interview process.
We have shown phenomenal productivity while working remotely.”
How has the onboarding process shifted to ensure off-site employees feel welcomed and engaged?
Every new hire goes through an onboarding process tailored to the team they’re joining. Each new hire gets to meet with people across the organization from day one, from our IT team to our HR and benefits specialists. We have clearly defined training schedules for each role, so they have the opportunity to work with their team lead and colleagues as they learn.
We have monthly new-hire meet-and-greets, where new and existing employees can get to know each other. Additionally, we have a company book club, watercooler talks and weekly team meetings. There are also opportunities to join our DEI committees, mentorship program and business resource groups. I’ve particularly enjoyed being a member of the book club and getting to meet people from teams I wouldn’t normally work with — it’s opened doors for me to get involved with teams and initiatives across the organization and made it even easier to build relationships.
FluentStream provides business communication software.
Which teams are expanding the most at FluentStream? What proportion of your open positions are available to remote workers?
We are currently overhauling our legacy platform, scrapping some old features completely and rewriting from scratch. With so many greenfield projects in the works, we’ve been primarily focused on scaling out our engineering team. In the last year, we have made some great additions, but we’re still hiring DevOps engineers, a principal developer, and a media and signaling developer. The best part? All of our positions are remote.
What did you change about the hiring process to better accommodate remote applicants?
As we are a fully remote company, all of our applicants are remote, and every interview is conducted over Zoom. During the technical interview process, we invite candidates to a Slack channel to work on a coding exercise in a collaborative environment with other members of the technical team. This gives them a chance to utilize the same tools we all use in our daily roles and allows them to understand firsthand what communication would be like as a FluentStream employee. Once they are hired, every engineer is outfitted with a MacBook Pro and a monthly remote-work stipend to go toward any work-related expenses.
In addition, the recruitment process has adapted to reach candidates across the United States. We regularly attend virtual hiring events, such as Women Impact Tech, Dice’s Women in Tech and Diversity in Tech career events, and meetups that appeal to a diverse group of candidates in and outside of Colorado.
We regularly attend virtual hiring events and meetups that appeal to a diverse group of candidates in and outside of Colorado.”
How has the onboarding process shifted to ensure off-site employees feel welcomed and engaged?
Everyone is distributed — therefore, onboarding and training programs have been adapted to be both informative and engaging for every employee.
To ensure that each employee feels welcome, we ship a package of FluentStream swag prior to their start date. During their first week, they are introduced to everyone and fun, informal time is planned into their schedule to keep things from being overwhelming while they acclimate to a new work environment.
We encourage everyone to join interest channels on Slack on topics such as pets, books and football to meet and interact with other employees outside of their direct team. We also have remote seasonal parties in which employees are given a DoorDash stipend or other treats, monthly retros with shoutouts and games, and other fun activities like March Madness brackets in which all employees are invited to take part.
