INDIANAPOLIS — Since March 2020 when the pandemic started, employees at Indianapolis tech company Springbuk began working remotely.
“We were one of the first tech companies to go remote. We thought we would be doing it for two weeks and here we are still,” Nicole Bickett, vice president of people & administration at Springbuk, said.
The healthcare and data intelligence software company had 85% of its workforce located in the Union 525 building downtown before the pandemic.
“We put together a return to work policy for COVID and once we started thinking about all the complexities of returning to work and how successful we were at home already we didn’t feel we needed to come back,” Bickett said.
They still have a small space downtown where they can hold meetings in the future, but the company is now allowing employees to work remotely full-time.
“Through this process, we’ve decided to officially call our culture WFA, work from anywhere,” Bickett said.
Now, employees live in 22 states across the country.
“We have a young workforce that doesn’t have a spouse tied here or kids in school and they can move to their dream state. People can travel and work when they travel. My husband and I were empty-nesters this year so we can go anywhere and work,” Bickett said.
According to Megan Nail with First Person Advisors, 98% of workers want a remote work option. The Indy-based human resources consulting firm is now busy helping companies create their remote work policies.
“The first question you should ask is looking at the job itself, what type of work you are performing and whether it could be done remotely,” Nail said. “It's really important to have something consistent so you can be fair among employees but also give that flexibility based on things like what their work is.”
Nail said it’s also important to include in the policy whether or not your employees can move out of state.
“Having a policy is something that is really needed right now but maintaining that flexibility," Nail said. “I think if 2020 taught us anything and even 2021 we don’t know always what’s around the corner, so you’ve got to keep an open mind and continue to revisit based on feedback.”
