Big data firm Databricks, which recently raised $1 billion, from investors including Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Salesforce, helps companies analyze data and build AI models.
Databricks has seen its valuation swell to $28 billion, but at the same time it's seeing a drop in employee connectedness. Its chief people officer says 2021 needs to be less about Zoom happy hours and more about addressing the root causes of lack of connectedness.Since March, we've released and analyzed internal surveys regularly to determine how employees have fared at home and the impact working from home has had on their sentiment about their experience within the company.
This includes determining how to standardize inclusive remote interview processes — from the basics of ensuring job descriptions are inclusive, providing unconscious bias training, communicating clear expectations around interview etiquette in remote interviews to all teams, and helping hiring managers and interviewers understand how to be engaging in a remote interview context for candidates.
By reimagining what our new grad community could look like, what is usually a small, in-person network became a global opportunity for employees to engage with each other across teams and locations. We hosted events like improv classes, game nights, storytelling workshops, and a weeks-long "Intern Olympics" competition to help our cohorts build a supportive and fun community.
Tech sector, WFH is not a problem. It's a challenge, an opportunity. Difficulty meeting is calling for solution. There is another opportunity : security, physical and digital. Now, go for it.