Quotes & Comments…

“I can’t tell you the number of CEOs I talked to who are thinking, ‘I have to solve the diversity challenge in my business, and remote work is one of the key tools… We have to let go of this very office-centric culture and incorporate people who are in a lot of geographies.” Hayden Brown, CEO at Upwork

“We are seeing acceleration of the trend to democratize the workplace… During these last few months, digital technology has flattened hierarchies, with everyone connected and getting information at the same time, and so many channels for employee input and involvement in decision-making in real time.” Diane Gherson, Former CHRO at IBM

“The future we envision for work allows for infinite virtual workspaces that will unlock social and economic opportunities for people regardless of barriers like physical location. It will take time to get there, and we continue to build toward this.” Andrew Bosworth, CTO at Meta

“Success in a hybrid work environment requires employers to move beyond viewing remote or hybrid environments as a temporary or short-term strategy and to treat it as an opportunity.” George Penn, VP at Gartner

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FM Broadcast – Summer 2022

Returning to Office vs. Staying Remote – How Is It Working Out So Far?

FlemingMartin’s quarterly CHRO Lunch Series in May included insights from 85 senior human resources executives from Life Sciences and Technology companies throughout California. Our guests shared their experiences with RTO, Hybrid, and Remote. Reviews were mixed, with some companies remaining remote first while others are adapting (or trying to adapt) a hybrid model. Here are some comments that stood out:

· “Forty percent of our hires since the pandemic are fully remote. I fully believe that we will lose talent if we force people back to the office.”

· “Our company was born in the pandemic and so we were built to be fully remote. We do offsites every eight weeks with rigorous COVID testing. Those offsites seem to really engage everyone.”

· “Bringing people back to work and location strategy has been a huge social capital expense for us – we’ve hired people from all over. We have a very collaborative culture by nature, and it’s worked remotely. However, we’re finding balls are still being dropped because we’re just not as together as we need. We have declared employees have to be in the office two days a week, one flexible, and two days at home. It is working.”

· “We have many consultants and there is no substitute for being face-to-face with your clients. Some of our clients want to come to our office rather than have us come to theirs. We have a remote first and travel as necessary policy. We must evaluate which client moments are most important to be there in person. We are still finalizing our answer to that question.”

· “What is the outcome we want from having people in the office? The original reason was to create community. We look at Google and Deloitte and even with the perks, they are struggling to get people to return. In our case, our clients pay the same rate regardless of their geography, so it is tough to justify geographic pay differentials.”

· “We were getting a lot of pushback on returning to the office and realized that we didn’t have a lot of good reasons to give to people. Our message is now, ‘Think of the office as a tool and allow individual teams to use it as they need. We know that answers may be different for different teams.’”

· “A big concern with working remote is career pathing opportunities and visibility. We’re still figuring out that piece.”

The full report from our most recent Lunch Series is here: Q2 CPO Lunch Series Report

Here are some recommended resources and articles:

· San Francisco Leads the Nation in No One Wanting to Work in an Office, and It’s Costing the City

· Welcome Back to the Office. Isn’t This Fun?

· Get Ready for the Return-to-Office Showdown

· We’re in the Midst of a ‘Great Return to Work.’ It’s Worth Celebrating.

Client Snapshot: Quora

Founded in 2009, Quora’s mission is to Share and Grow the World’s Knowledge. With more than 300 million monthly users, Quora is a remote-first company that has raised $285 million in Venture Capital funding from investors including BlackRock, Valor Equity Partners, and Collaborative Fund. Quora is valued at $1.8 billion and enables people from all over the world to come together to share and learn across millions of common interests.

FlemingMartin is proud to have partnered with Quora and placed their Chief People Officer and Vice President of People Operations & Talent Acquisition.

Firm News

FlemingMartin is excited to announce that we have added a new Associate to the team! Nathaniel Sprouse is responsible for client support and candidate recruitment across multiple industries. Kind and engaging, Nathaniel enjoys conducting research and connecting with candidates to support the establishment of long-term relationships. Nathaniel Pic

Prior to joining FlemingMartin, Nathaniel worked in a staffing firm specializing in the placement of engineers, as a Recruitment Manager in the non-profit sector, and as an educator focused on history.

He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and is passionate about gardening, soccer, and fly-fishing. He earned his bachelor’s degree, Magna Cum Laude, with designation as an Outstanding Graduate of the University of Tennessee and received a Master of Divinity Degree, Summa Cum Laude, from Vanderbilt University.

In other news, the FlemingMartin team recently had the opportunity to spend time together in person at our company off-site in May! We enjoyed a lovely day in San Francisco complete with an escape room, walking tour, and delicious meals. We hope to resume more in-person events in the near future.

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