When I founded Orum in late 2019, I couldn’t have known the timing would dictate a major part of our culture: Confronted by Covid, we had to build as a remote-first company.
Now, five years on, remote work is an active choice rather than a necessity. In this time we’ve learned so much about being remote. Some aspects have evolved in fascinating ways, while others have stayed the same.
The return-to-work debate seems to be perpetually in the news cycle, and I absolutely see both sides. I didn’t necessarily plan for Orum to be remote-first, but for us, this is working.
We are remote, not distant.
We’ve built as much culture, connection, and engagement as companies who work together in-office.
Here’s how remote work at Orum has changed, and what remains the same half a decade in.
Remote work is a feature, not a bug.
So much of the return-to-office debate focuses on what can or can’t be replicated in a remote setting. The reality is that in-office has its pros and cons, and so does remote. They are discrete ways of working.
So, we don’t seek to recreate in-office work. We aim to optimize remote work. We always come back to the core question of whether our business results are optimal, and at Orum, the answer is yes. Therefore, we’ll focus on making it ever-better – just like any feature we build.
We continue to work synchronous hours.
With team members spread across multiple time zones, we intentionally create a lot of overlap when everyone’s online at the same time. Our standard overlap is from 12 pm to 6 pm ET, facilitating team meetings across time zones without being a burden for those not on the east coast. Asynchronous communication is necessary, of course, as team members start and end their day at different hours. But it’s critical that we have a good portion of the day together.
We’re able to incorporate more diversity of thought by hiring around the country.
Diversity of thought is a core value at Orum, and hiring across the country greatly helps us honor that value. About 63% of our employees are in the Eastern time zone, 10% are in Central, 7% are in Mountain, and 20% are in the Pacific. Our vision is to power a better financial system where everyone has the freedom to build to their potential — not just people in major cities or on the coasts. It’s essential for us to bring people of all backgrounds together to reflect the breadth of people we seek to serve.
We have one board member who continues to believe we should change to in-office work.
Even after five years, one of our beloved board members still says in every meeting and nearly every conversation: “You could produce even more if you were in person.” It’s a personal POV and reflects a strong perspective in the venture capital community that remote work doesn’t work.
We respect their opinion. And we’re also not letting that opinion change our course. No matter how you build a company, people will believe things should be done this way or that way. We focus on our metrics of success and continue charting our course for what works for our business.
Employee engagement is still something that requires additional effort.
When you don’t see your colleagues in person daily, it could leave a gap in understanding how teams and individuals are faring. You might not get the full picture from seeing people on Zoom or reading their Slacks. We acknowledge that it takes more work in a remote setting to understand employee engagement, and we do that work. We flight engagement surveys on a regular basis that dive deeply into how our employees feel about the company, their managers, their work, and whether they feel connected with our mission. We ask for advice on ways we can improve and we review the results of each survey as a company.
Now that we’re past peak Covid, remote work is truly an active choice.
Remote is an active choice for our company, and for our team. Those who join us choose us in part because remote work aligns with their lifestyle: They can avoid losing time on a traditional commute and use that window to see their child off at the bus stop in the morning, walk their dog, exercise, do their laundry, or in some cases dig into work challenges earlier or later into the day. For Orum, that flexibility drives retention and productivity.
The diaspora continues to evolve.
Some time ago, we had groups of employees clustered in San Francisco, Denver, and New York. But these locales have not stayed the same over time. Our team continues to move around the U.S. based on life changes, and we expect that to carry on.
Our executive team is now intentionally centralized in the New York City area.
At one point we had the leaders on our executive team in different time zones and we had to plan our meetings around that reality. That worked for us early on—but now our scale is different. In the last 18 months, we’ve intentionally centered our executive team around the New York metro area, and it’s a superpower for our leadership. We come together regularly and we do so with less than a day’s notice at times to solve a hard challenge. It’s been absolutely invaluable.
When I founded Orum, I didn’t necessarily plan for the company to be remote-first, and I don’t necessarily plan for it to always be that way.
Remote, however, is very much part of our origin story. There is no changing how Orum was born. What’s more, I wouldn’t want to change it. Team Orum is successful and engaged, and I have no regrets about being fully remote from Day 1.
Every company has a culture, an identity, a story — and I love how Orum’s is being written.