Lever has been awarded on the Forbes list of America’s Best Startup Employers 2021. This prestigious award is presented by Forbes and Statista Inc., the world-leading statistics portal and industry ranking provider. The awards list was announced on March 9th, 2021 and can currently be viewed on the Forbes website.
America’s Best Startup Employers were selected based on an innovative methodology evaluating employer excellence in three ways:
- Employee Satisfaction: extensive research was conducted on ‘Average Length of Employment’ and ‘Online Employer Reviews’.
- Employer Reputation: company specific information was algorithmically extracted from social media channels such as news sites, micro-blogs, blogs and social networks.
- Company Growth: comprehensive evaluations of ‘Website Traffic’, ‘Headcount Growth Rates’, and ‘Industry-Referenced Job Openings’.
“We are thrilled to be recognized by Forbes for this award,” said Annie Lin, VP of People. “This proves to employers around the world that they can succeed as a business, be an inclusive workplace, and take care of their employees all during a year of dramatic change.”
This great achievement has caused us to reflect on the policies we put in place to move the needle in these areas in the past year. Here are some elements we did to pivot during the pandemic, while still maintaining excellent employee engagement and service, and re-focus on our growth plan ahead.
Re-evaluating our benefits
We completely restructured our benefits and perks program to better support our employees during an unusual year. We added ergonomic stipends, work from home equipment reimbursement, and internet reimbursement given many people did not have monitors, desks, and more when we made the quick pivot to working remotely. To make sure that we actually support each employee’s unique situation, we selected people from a randomized sample and met with them for a listening tour to hear the various circumstances our employees were dealing with. Some employees have roommates that are essential workers, parents had to become teachers for their children, teachers, you name it. From these meetings, we doubled-down on mental health resources, added the ergonomic and IT equipment stipends, and specifically a “home setup reimbursement” policy.
The home setup reimbursement policy really took into account the special circumstances employees were dealing with to support employees being most effective and well while working from home. This ranged from the sit-stand desk, babysitters, grocery delivery, dog walking, and the like.
Gathering employer feedback
As we focused internally on what needed to change, we also talked to our customers and developed a product roadmap around the new needs they were experiencing at their own companies externally. In a survey of employers we conducted in 2020, we found that 50% of those surveyed said diversity and inclusion initiatives will become more of a priority as companies proactively work to combat racism in the workplace. Additionally, 37% of those surveyed spent time rethinking their recruiting processes, while 41% cleaned up their recruiting data during slower hiring times. Lastly, 71% of reporters said it’s now more important that candidate relationship management tools be built into their applicant tracking system.
There was no question – we needed to provide more features as companies work to do more with less leading us to add more innovations in terms of automation, smarter analytics, and focus on improving diversity within their companies.
Changing how we recruit
As we evaluated our growth in the coming year, it led our head of recruiting to focus more on proactive recruiting, as we shifted to a more hybrid working model. Now, applicants are no longer strict to applying locally as more companies embrace remote work, so the number of applicants for each position has increased dramatically.
This rethinking effort is more focus and emphasis on processes. Some changes our team made included:
- Shortening blocks of time candidates would sit in an interview
- Sending PDFs to prepare candidates for every step of the process
- Assigning each candidate one point of contact on the team to help guide their journey
Making sure we could maintain a human touch to recruiting was critical to our success. We additionally ensured that we are continually evaluating market norms and refreshing our position to be competitive not only within your industry, but also with other newer companies trying to recruit the same talent. Relationship building and connection will be at the center every step of the way.
It’s extremely important to keep flexible with changes that come our way and always be sure to listen to employees and customers in how we can support them best. We are absolutely thrilled to be honored with this award and can’t wait to see what our team will accomplish in the year ahead.