Not too long ago, jobseekers interviewing for new positions had to answer deal-breaking questions about their physical proximity to the office. Did they live within 30 miles? Were they near public transportation? Could they commute efficiently during the agonizing grind of rush hour?
For many, a large component of work wasn’t just office proximity, but the fact that each day was bookended by a physical journey — one frequently filled with red brake lights stretching out like paper lanterns or lurching metal scraping along pre-dawn train tracks.
Now, with the switch to remote work, there’s a new kind of commute — and a new kind of proximity. Both companies and employers are discovering that one of the benefits of remote work is that each company’s reach for talent extends far beyond the usual parameters. Thirty miles has expanded into the hundreds and even thousands. Highways and subways have coalesced into fiber optic Wi-Fi, high-def video and a favorite easy chair.
To learn more about how remote work is propelling companies forward, we spoke with Nurx VP of People Lori Medeiros, who filled us in on the healthtech company’s wider reach for top talent, their changes in the hiring process and their reimagined efforts to engage new hires remotely.
Which teams are expanding the most at your company? What proportion of your open positions are available to remote workers?
Nurx is investing in our tech teams (engineering, data engineering, product & design) heavily this year. Our tech positions can be entirely remote, based in our San Francisco office or a hybrid of both. In fact, all Nurx roles — with the exception of our pharmacy positions — have the flexibility to be based at home or in the office. Currently about 25 percent of our total employees are based in the Bay Area.
What did you change about the hiring process to better accommodate remote applicants?
We offer several options to best accommodate what works for each candidate. The biggest change we made is being open to hire engineering and product talent who reside outside of the Bay Area. We have expanded hiring from four to 19 states since May 2020 and our tech teams are currently 50 percent Bay-Area based and 50 percent in other parts of California or other states. We also built flexibility into the actual interview loop by empowering candidates to choose to do the tech screen as a take-home project or have it conducted live as part of their interview lineup. Interviewing via video also has made it easy to break up the interview loop across a few days or run it straight through, depending on the candidate’s preferences.
The biggest change we made is being open to hire engineering and product talent who reside outside of the Bay Area — we have expanded hiring from four to 19 states since May 2020.”
How has the onboarding process shifted to ensure offsite employees feel welcomed and engaged?
Nurx has invested time and energy in thinking about candidates’ pre-boarding and onboarding assimilation. It can be isolating working from home! We want to offer a great employee experience even if our new hires are sitting at home. This covers everything from engaging with them between offer acceptance and start date, ensuring that their equipment and swag arrives for their first day, supporting their home office set up with a stipend, and encouraging them to participate in a variety of Nurx activities, such as signing up for office hours with both our CEO and our co-founder, getting paired up for a random coffee chat, joining our book club, signing up for a trivia game and more. We have also developed content for new hires to get to know each department and team and what they do at Nurx.
Nurx is a healthtech platform that believes healthcare should be unconditional, and they seek to make sure that vital medications and tests are accessible and affordable to everyone.
