The Great Resignation is far from over. In September alone, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that a record 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs — an increase from the record-setting 4.3 million resignations observed in August.
With new expectations like flexible remote work, higher compensation, clear internal growth paths and mental wellness benefits, this wave of change has disrupted the modern workforce as we know it and it’s likely that careers will never be the same.
For companies like Carrum Health, that’s a great thing. In the past year and a half, the healthtech company has rapidly scaled from its original cast of 16 employees to just under 100 team members located remotely across the country. Organizations have not only expanded their reach into a very capable talent pool by going remote, but it’s also forced leadership to take a hard look at their previous work culture and adapt.
“People are looking for mission-driven companies that will allow them to solve big problems, have more of an impact and serve a higher purpose,” Chief Operating Officer Dan Nardi said. “Being proactive with candidates and audiences has really helped ensure we can stand out from the crowd.”
Built In Chicago sat down with Nardi to learn about how Carrum Health is striving to stand out among the influx of competitive job seekers through a shared desire to change the healthcare landscape and all the ways they’ve continued to adapt since the pandemic to keep their top talent galvanized.
What are some things you and your team do to attract great talent and stand out from other potential employers?
Here at Carrum, we have implemented a nice mix of proactive recruiting, tapping our existing network and uncovering new avenues to ensure we are reaching the most diverse and wide-reaching audiences as possible. But the biggest advantage that we’ve seen is clearly sharing what our mission is and how we are changing healthcare.
We have found in an extremely competitive job market that being proactive with candidates and audiences has really helped ensure we can stand out from the crowd. Not as many people are cruising job postings and applying on their own anymore; rather, they are looking for mission-driven companies that will allow them to solve big problems, have more of an impact and serve a higher purpose.
What are a couple of your key strategies or offerings that help you retain talent?
We spend a lot of time thinking about, planning for, iterating on and evolving our culture. From a year-long process of refreshing our values in the middle of a pandemic to the creation of a formal diversity, equity and inclusion committee with the support of external diversity partners and instituting an 80 percent employer-paid premium for medical insurance, we have truly put an emphasis on our Carrum culture and what it means to all of us.
It’s been proven time and again that the number one reason people stay at a company is because of their coworkers — but I think the other key to retention is listening to your employees’ feedback and implementing the benefits or programs they’re asking for. We plan to roll out competency-based career paths in 2022, as well as updates to our benefits portfolio and the formalization of our Carrum Culture Club to help plan engaging events.
I think the other key to retention is listening to your employees’ feedback and implementing the benefits or programs they’re asking for.”
How has your company adapted to the shifting wants and needs of your employees over the last year?
When the pandemic started, our company only had 16 employees who were predominantly in the Bay Area. We are now approaching 100 team members across four time zones. This rapid growth was done in a fully-remote environment over the past year and a half — definitely a shift from our pre-Covid approach.
We were successful in making this shift because we stopped limiting our hiring focus to just specific geographies, and we revamped our interviewing processes to embrace video meetings and virtual settings.
Going from being 100 percent in-office to fully remote overnight had its challenges, but we kept a growth mindset and solved problems one at a time. Some of our biggest wins came by leveraging technology — Disco and Donut plugins for Slack are excellent — while others came by agreeing to new meeting hygiene as a team, which meant meeting-free times built into the week, and 25 or 50 minute meetings instead of 30 and 60 minutes. We also created opportunities for people to simply connect through Monday morning coffee chats, Friday virtual happy hours or even virtual cooking classes for charity.
But at the end of the day, we are all connected and engaged through our shared passion to change healthcare.
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