The Employee Handbook

A monthly newsletter about current challenges and conversations for values-driven HR professionals

Evolving a Strong Set of Cultural Values for a Remote Workforce

Pop quiz: What U.S. city currently has the most remote workers? That would be Austin, Texas—with a whopping 24.9% of its workers operating outside of a traditional office environment. Carmen Amara, chief people officer at Yelp, is one of them.

While many companies have ordered their employees back to the workplace, others have remained committed to flexibility. During a fireside chat at From Day One’s Austin conference, Amara showed how Yelp develops its remote culture with three elements in mind: What are employees saying about it? What are the business results? What is the pace of innovation?

So, can you create culture in a remote environment? “Yes, you can, but you have to do so with intention,” Amara said. “And it’s not the same playbook. You can’t translate what you were doing in an office environment and just do that at home.”

Yelp does it by relying on its longstanding core set of values. “Culture is about the stories that we tell and the values we hold high. That has to be foundational. You have to live by your values. You have to show your values in action. You have to address breaches in your values,” Amara told session moderator Ross McCammon, deputy editor at Texas Monthly.

Elevating the Employee Experience

Amara says Yelp has relied on employee listening to inform many of its actions during and after the pandemic. “We did more specific and targeted surveys and interactions with employees to learn from them, so that we could quickly create the new playbook,” she said, noting that the organization was even more willing to move quickly and learn on the fly while refining the employee experience, rather than waiting for it to be “fully baked” before launch.

What came out of the listening sessions was a strong desire for flexibility and the benefits that can help support it—caregiver benefits, mental health benefits, and flexible health and wellness benefits, including a stipend that can be put toward gym memberships, acupuncture, fitness gear, or the like. “It’s about creating a person-first experience,” Amara said. Read the full story here or watch the session recording here.

Want to Retain Your Workers? Show You Genuinely Care About Their Mental Health

When not done effectively or intentionally, remote and hybrid work can further blur the lines between personal and professional life, worsening the workforce’s mental health crisis. How can employers ensure workers are being supported, no matter where they work?

“Employees often approach Nivati struggling with mental health challenges like stress, burnout, anxiety, relationship challenges, and work-life balance issues, which are major contributors to workplace dissatisfaction,” said Nivati CEO Amelia Wilcox.

Wilcox suggests focusing on the fundamentals: clearly communicating and reminding employees that their resources are not just available but designed to be used. “Effective onboarding, consistent conversations on mental health, periodic reminders, and visible support from leadership increase utilization, making employees more aware that their employer genuinely cares about their well-being,” she said. 

In the five years since Nivati’s inception, said Wilcox, “we’ve learned that the key to impactful mental health support is a holistic approach, including therapy, fitness, finance, and self-care tools, all made accessible within a flexible platform that meets employees where they are. We’ve also learned that some people aren’t comfortable with jumping right into therapy. So our platform was designed to allow people to start in an area that’s less ‘scary’ for them and build trust with the platform and team. They can take baby steps to grow into therapy.” Read the full story here. 

Join us!

Setting your goals for the new year? If learning from and networking with industry experts are part of your plan, be sure to register today for our lineup of 2025 live and virtual events.

Our monthly half-day virtual conference schedule is available here. Tune in to learn from our network of industry experts on topics related to benefits and total rewards, talent acquisition, employee engagement, wellness and family benefits, employee recognition, and more. If you prefer shorter, topic-specific 60-minute sessions, check out our full list of webinars and register today. 

Or join us in person! We’ll be touching down in Atlanta, Washington D.C., Houston, Salt Lake City, Silicon Valley, Seattle, and more to discuss the topic “The New Era of Investing in Humans.” And there’s more in store for benefits leaders in Chicago, Boston, or NYC, as well as talent acquisition leaders in NYC. Find an event near you and register today.

Thanks for being part of the From Day One community; we look forward to seeing you next year!