Explorium Attracts Top Talent and Boosts Company Culture With anywell

Ilana Nisman leads HR at Explorium, a fast-growing startup that combines the world's best data to generate, enrich, and prepare external data sets for analytics and machine learning. She joined the company a short time after it was founded four years ago and has led its meteoric growth to 170 employees.  

Like many other companies, Explorium employees worked from the office before the pandemic. “People actually loved the office,” says Nisman. “It’s a successful company with a great atmosphere. No one worked from home, no one wanted to.” Initially, she perceived Covid and the forced transfer to remote work as a disaster, but the company made every effort to make the transition as smooth as possible. They arranged for desks, chairs, and screens to be delivered to employees’ homes, upped their employees’ meal benefits, offered paid three hours of babysitting a day and virtual workshops for kids, and even sponsored home pizza nights. “We knew people were lonely and worried, and we tried to support them in every way,” she says. The effort paid off: employees reported a high level of satisfaction in a survey, and productivity remained optimal. 

When the vaccine rollout enabled people to come back to the office, Explorium, like many hi-tech companies, transitioned to a hybrid policy. “Hybrid is a demand, and no one wants to come in every day anymore. Now we give employees a choice, and people usually come in 2-3 times a week, per their choice,” she explains. However, there were concerns that the company culture would suffer. “It’s a young company, we wanted people to connect to the product. We saw that people want to come to the office, to be together, and that hasn’t changed. We were worried initially, but now we see that it’s possible to maintain the atmosphere, even with flexibility. And now the flexibility is standard.”

Explorium hasn’t been heavily impacted by The Great Resignation. “Most people are staying,” says Nisman. “It's a good company, an intellectual challenge, they get great benefits, and they don’t want to leave.” However, she has seen changes in recruitment, where the employee-led market is driving applicants to make a lot of demands, including work from home and flexibility. Meeting candidate expectations is key to being about to recruit top talent. 

anywell is helping Explorim address the demand for choice and flexibility. “Our employees love working from different local spots, they really utilize the benefit,” she says. “Teams start the day and have meetings at anywell locations – it’s a change of scene and a good place for collaboration.  For us as a company, it’s perfect. We want to offer flexibility, let each person choose the right thing for them.”

Nisman also gained insight from the data she received from anywell. She could see that remote employees were working at regular hours and getting things done. “I also saw that some managers need to get their teams together out of the office. It’s refreshing, it gets them unstuck, and they can develop the work culture of each team,” she explains. 

Explorium is now offering anywell to all employees. “It’s a great service for companies,” Nisman concludes. “You feel like a VIP when you arrive at the cafe. You just say that you’re from anywell and you get your coffee. You feel special.”