If you asked someone who works in a hybrid or remote environment how their arrangement benefits them, the answers would vary. Freedom and flexibility likely serve as an underlying commonality between responses, but the details will be distinctive — and personal.
For Fidel API’s VP of People Natalie Ho, the simple things, like the time to walk her dog, go for a workout or attend an appointment, add up to a significant positive impact on work-life balance. Meanwhile, Boisson’s Supplier Development Manager Lori Wilkinson-Gray said it provided more time to sleep and improved her happiness and alertness while working.
“The lack of commute to and from an office has given me so much time back; it really makes such a noticeable difference,” Wilkinson-Gray said. “It’s nice to be able to do little household chores throughout the day rather than having to do them in the evening when tired from working or spending the weekend on them.”
Hybrid and remote approaches offer their fair share of perks and benefits, but approaches to these work models run the gamut from 100 percent work from home to mostly in the office. The details matter to job seekers — not only in a company’s unique approach but also in its efforts to keep employees engaged with culture, connected to team members and passionate about their work.
At six NYC companies, professionals are finding freedom and flexibility in remote and hybrid work without sacrificing the relationships and shared goals that make people feel like they're part of a greater whole.
Flatiron Health translates clinical and data science into patient experiences to advance research, improve treatment and inform policy for cancer patients.
What are the details of Flatiron Health’s flexible remote or hybrid schedule, and what aspect do you enjoy most about it?
We’ve chosen to be hybrid because it allows us to meet everyone where they are — to optimize for collaboration and community without compromising health, safety or the work-life integration we all value. The majority of our workforce is based in NYC and comes to the office two times a week. They experience our vibrant headquarters to enjoy a meal with colleagues, collaborate in person and celebrate accomplishments. The next segment of our population is fully remote, and then we have employees across offices in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Berlin, London and Tokyo. Wherever they are, we encourage flexibility and autonomy so employees can optimize the way they work best.
We’ve chosen to be hybrid because it allows us to meet everyone where they are — to optimize for collaboration and community without compromising health, safety or work-life integration.”
We invested in collaboration technologies such as Donut, Neat Bar and Miro so employees are included and can contribute meaningfully, regardless of their location. We have an open calendar practice, and employees are encouraged to block their schedules if they have a personal appointment or need focus time. We provide research-based guidelines on when to connect asynchronously and synchronously and which communication platform is best to leverage depending on the message.
How has a flexible schedule helped you maintain a better work-life balance?
We have a values-based culture, and that has stayed true throughout the transition to remote and hybrid work. We have 10 values that are specific and clear, and our values have been an integral part of our culture since Flatiron started 11 years ago. New hires learn our values on day one during their onboarding, and we have working practices to amplify these values throughout their time here. As an example, one of our values is “start with why,” and the documents, presentations and proposals we work on all begin with a “start with why” section so the reader or audience member has the necessary context to follow along. We also recognize and reward behaviors based on our values to maintain momentum and excitement.
What positive impacts has this flexible schedule had on your team and the ways you connect with others?
Our employees are our culture. Their behaviors and mindsets — from the way they come together, bring in diverse perspectives and intentionally pause to seek feedback — all encompass and strengthen our culture. One of our values is “do the right thing,” and our employees practice this value in many ways. An example is our employee-led initiative, Flatiron Gives, which is a service group that organizes and facilitates volunteer opportunities and charitable events. They regularly brainstorm new ways to give back and initiated a matching program where Flatiron matches employee donations to charities. In fact, Flatiron matched over $13,000 just last year because of their efforts!
With the transition to hybrid work, all of our employee-driven groups — from Flatiron Gives to our ERGs — aim to engage employees who are remote and office-based in their preferred modality. This means that we may have a volunteer event in the NYC office for employees who are excited to build community and volunteer in person, but also offer a virtual option so our remote population can participate as well.
Sisense embeds analytics into any workflow to help drive business decisions.
What are the details of Sisense’s flexible remote or hybrid schedule, and what aspect do you enjoy most about it?
Sisense has an incredible hybrid work environment. Our return-to-office policy requires employees to work on-site once a week on Wednesdays. I love how flexible our policy is because I can work from home the other days if I need to and save time commuting. Working on-site is also a great time for in-person collaboration and organic conversation that doesn’t happen over Zoom. Sisense also provides us with a delicious team lunch, so I truly look forward to these days.
I love how flexible our policy is because I can work from home if I need to and save time commuting.”
How has a flexible schedule helped you maintain a better work-life balance?
A flexible work schedule has truly helped me improve my work-life balance. Anytime I have a doctor’s appointment, it has been so nice to work that into my schedule and have the flexibility to take that appointment without having to take time off. Not to mention, not having to commute every day really frees up my time to dive into my meetings and projects without having to waste time going to and from the office, which really helps me maintain a healthy work-life balance.
What positive impacts has this flexible schedule had on your team and the ways you connect with others?
Getting to connect with the people team in the NYC office has made such a huge impact. NYC-based employees on our team all get together in the office on Wednesday and get to have face-to-face meetings and connect over lunch. This time really helps to build rapport. Not to mention, we just rolled out No Zoom Wednesdays, so when you are in the office, you really are focused on building connections.
Foursquare connects people with meaningful experiences while helping businesses achieve better outcomes.
What are the details of your Foursquare’s flexible remote or hybrid schedule, and what aspect do you enjoy most about it?
Flexibility is our philosophy. We want to create and invest in the full employee experience and will continue to devote significant resources to doing so, including in-office engagement. We’re all about empowering employees to decide how they work best. For example, my operations team is in the office three days a week, which gives us the best of both worlds. We get some face time with our customers, aka fellow employees, but we also get to enjoy some of the perks of working from home. Foursquare recognizes the priceless value of face-to-face collaboration and in-person community building, which is why my team and I are so passionate about continuing to invest not only in our spaces but also in the personal connections that are formed while at the office.
How has a flexible schedule helped you maintain a better work-life balance?
Having a bit of freedom and flexibility has done wonders for my mental health and work-life balance. I think the reality is that being in an office from 9-5 Monday through Friday isn’t necessarily the best format for all types of work all the time. I would say that my work-life balance has drastically improved with our flexible philosophy.
What positive impacts has this flexible schedule had on your team and the ways you connect with others?
The most positive impact that I’ve noticed in this new flexible environment is that people are happier. Sure, we all have some tough days and crazy workloads, but generally, people seem to be able to bring more to the table when they have the freedom and flexibility to do what best serves them.
Generally, people seem to be able to bring more to the table when they have the freedom and flexibility to do what best serves them.”
For my team specifically — as I mentioned, we are in the office quite a bit — we enjoy the connections we’ve built in person and how much more efficient that makes us when we are all working virtually. When in the office, we have the benefit of quicker face-to-face communication, and when we are virtual, there is a shared understanding of different working styles. This reinforces the importance of flexible work and why I think it’s a wonderful solution to today’s million-dollar question.
Fidel API offers financial infrastructure APIs to developers to enable real-time card payments.
What are the details of your Fidel API’s flexible remote or hybrid schedule, and what aspect do you enjoy most about it?
I have been working at Fidel API for five months, and I’m really happy to say that the culture has lived up to the high expectations set during my recruitment process. We are fortunate to have a leadership team that champions our culture of flexibility and trust as a critical part of a high-performance team. We’re able to provide and nurture this flexibility through strong communication among teams, and we have some great initiatives in place.
These include offices in our main locations — Lisbon, London and NYC — so our local teams have the opportunity to work in a hybrid setting, a work-from-home budget to ensure everyone has a comfortable setup, focus on internal asynchronous communication so we can respect everyone’s schedule globally while making sure information flows efficiently and effectively across the company, and a flexible vacation policy where our people can take as much leave as they need.
Additionally, we empower our teams to set focus time and breaks in their calendars to respect individual preferences for managing energy and productivity levels throughout the day and conduct regular engagement surveys to gain feedback and learnings on our culture and ways of working so we can continue balancing our business and people needs.
How has a flexible schedule helped you maintain a better work-life balance?
I’m based in London and work daily with an internationally distributed team. Having a flexible schedule allows me to maintain what I believe to be a meaningful work-life balance. I’m naturally an early riser, so I like to schedule focus work in the mornings and have my afternoons for meetings and collaboration.
It’s not always easy to take a break during the day, so I am very intentional about blocking out time in my calendar. I have the flexibility to take time out to walk my dog, go for a workout or attend an appointment when I need to. I also have some strategies in place to promote work-life balance. When I have early morning calls, I usually take an earlier lunch. When I have late-night catch-ups with people based on the West Coast, I usually take longer breaks during the afternoon to get some fresh air and step away from work. If I have a day full of video calls, I prefer to work from home.
For me, the best part of working in a hybrid approach is that I have the flexibility to focus on doing work in a way that gets the best out of me as well as building meaningful connections that come from in-person interactions.
I have the flexibility to focus on doing work in a way that gets the best out of me as well as building meaningful connections that come from in-person interactions.”
What positive impacts has this flexible schedule had on your team and the ways you connect with others?
One of my top priorities as a leader is making sure I understand my team’s preferred ways of working. We catch up regularly to align work practices and routines to maintain our individual sense of meaningful work-life balance while ensuring we hit our team goals. I encourage my team to fully own their schedule, and I am always supporting them with balancing their interests outside of work, like finishing up early so they can go to a Crossfit competition or pottery class.
I’ve seen this across the company too. People include personal activities in their work calendars, so it is very common to see events like ‘school pickup’ or ‘yoga.’ There is a safe space and culture where our people share when they need to take a break from work.
At Fidel API, we have an inclusive approach to flexibility by understanding everyone has different interests and responsibilities. Fidelians are encouraged to enjoy their flexibility in the way they believe is best — without judgment. We have ambitious company goals and expect high performance from our team, and we believe that building trust and empowering flexibility are key drivers to retaining our talent and being successful in the long run.
Boisson is a nonalcoholic beverage retailer focused on curated products from around the world.
What are the details of Boisson’s flexible remote or hybrid schedule, and what aspect do you enjoy most about it?
I personally work remotely and enjoy it immensely. Employees are online during regular business hours, but there’s flexibility offered as far as needing PTO for things like doctor’s appointments or other engagements. It’s nice to be able to do little household chores throughout the day rather than having to do them in the evening when tired from working or spending the weekend on them. I dress appropriately for meetings and calls, and when I don’t have those scheduled, I’m free to just be comfortable!
Employees are online during regular business hours, but there’s flexibility offered as far as needing PTO for things like doctor’s appointments or other engagements.”
How has a flexible schedule helped you maintain a better work-life balance?
The lack of commute to and from an office has given me so much time back; it really makes such a noticeable difference. In the winter, when it’s so dark and cold, I love not having to be up two hours early in order to walk, feed and play with my dog before getting ready to leave for the day, then commuting to the office with plenty of extra time in cases of inclement weather. I’m getting more sleep, and overall I am more alert and happier during my workday. My dog is very happy that I’m around to walk her throughout the day, and she’s getting more exercise and play as well.
What positive impacts has this flexible schedule had on your team and the ways you connect with others?
With many employees working remotely, our team makes an effort to connect with one another through media platforms like Slack or on the phone. I think it helps strike a good balance between being able to focus on work and connecting when there’s time to do so. I think we’ve all been trapped at someone’s desk or the water cooler, at one point or another, making conversation with a “talker” while work piles up!
Waldo’s no-code testing platform automates mobile app testing while avoiding scripting, enabling developers to build seamless mobile experiences and cut out bugs.
What are the details of your Waldo’s flexible remote or hybrid schedule, and what aspect do you enjoy most about it?
Waldo absolutely trusts their remote employees. We’re distributed across the U.S. and EU, but we decide wherever we want to work. So if you’re not an early bird or need to take care of your kids after their school day, you can arrange your schedule however is best for you and the business. Our company is adamant about employees taking their lunch hours and time for themselves. Due to time zone differences, we work a lot asynchronously and in writing. We have very few recurring meetings. “It could have been solved in an email” is something we live by, and many day-to-day issues are solved on Slack. We have an office in New York, and employees have no obligation to be on-site.
How has a flexible schedule helped you maintain a better work-life balance?
Thanks to Waldo and its flexibility, if I am ever feeling overwhelmed or have something going on in my personal life, I know I have a company that supports employees taking the time they need. Often my manager has encouraged me to take an afternoon off when they know I need it. While work is a big part of our lives, it’s not the most important part. We have unlimited PTO, and unlike many companies, we’re all encouraged to disconnect. Waldo does not take mental health lightly and fully supports us in caring for ourselves and our loved ones.
If I am ever feeling overwhelmed or have something going on in my personal life, I know I have a company that supports employees taking the time they need.”
What positive impacts has this flexible schedule had on your team and the ways you connect with others?
My favorite part about being remote at Waldo is that they set up quarterly on-site meetings in New York so we still get that face-to-face connection. While it’s not mandatory, as it can be challenging for some people to be away from their homes, it’s a perk we all love.
Thanks to Waldo being so flexible on every employee’s schedule, I can take lunches to meet with other customer success managers in the area to talk about our industry or new trends. We also recently introduced coffee chats, where we’re randomly paired with a coworker weekly for a 15-minute video chat. It’s an opportunity to speak about anything but work!
