“You often hear, ‘It takes a village!’, so when I started TempDev, my goal was to build a virtual village. A place where we could choose the best employees from across the country all looking to change the healthcare experience that also felt like a family.” This quote from Laura Miller encompasses her business vision and philosophy. Founder of TempDev, a remote company for almost 15 years, Miller believes the pandemic has exposed something she has known all along—the many benefits of remote work.
TempDev is a healthcare consulting firm that assists with improving many aspects of medical practices. This makes hiring the right person to do the job critical and where a person is located is one less thing to stress over since TempDev is not restricted to a specific location. With access to the nation’s best problem solvers, TempDev delivers a wide variety of clinical, technical, and financial solutions to their customers.
TempDev not only gets high praise for its services, but this company is also making giant strides as an attractive place to work. For Miller, it was essential to build a company that attracts quality employees with perks most businesses cannot promise. Miller explains, “I wanted to create a workspace that not only supported you throughout each stage of your career but also provided you the support, flexibility, and empathy that is often necessary for all of life’s ups and downs.”
This compassionate and flexible approach to business is especially desirable to people with family responsibilities that prevent them from thriving in a traditional employment setting. Miller says her main goal was to create a nurturing, family atmosphere where people get the support they need. And this support comes in many varieties, including what’s essential to manage their life responsibilities with more ease and less stress. Ultimately, this atmosphere allows employees to thoroughly enjoy both their professional and personal lives without choosing one over the other.
“Building, growing, and caretaking for a family should be seen as a positive thing. Getting sick should not mean losing your job and health insurance. We have to remember where our priorities and values are,” says Miller. When creating TempDev, Miller says she took a hard look at what mattered to her as a woman with a family and tried to maintain that focus. “As leaders, we have to show the values of the company by leading by example. We can’t just talk about having a work-life balance, putting our families first, being flexible, and then not do it ourselves,” says Miller.
So, Miller has made it her mission to be a woman of action, not just words. TempDev’s top priority is establishing a family-centered culture, and she means it. And it’s not just the employee’s families that get supported through the flexible work environment. Miller is proud of the fact that TempDev employees all consider each other one big “family.”
Miller explains that when a team member is going through a rough patch, the rest of the “family” rallies to support them. Whether it is taking on extra tasks to lighten their load or just offering some encouraging words, the team is supportive. Miller says her company will never be a place where taking off for family reasons is frowned upon by anyone.
The pandemic forced some companies into becoming remote, but TempDev has been fully remote since its inception. Miller believes that creating a remote workforce during the pandemic might be the best thing that ever happened to many businesses.
What are some other reasons remote work continues to be an attractive alternative? Beyond the family benefits, no commuting saves hours a day, wear and tear on your vehicles, and money. And not driving to and from work also benefits the environment. Additionally, remote access allows your business to pull the best talent from anywhere in the US, not just from a limited pool of applicants. This option provides the diversity and multiple perspectives needed to deliver a great product or service. It also creates an atmosphere welcoming and suitable for talented introverts who might not thrive in a traditional office setting.
Miller adds that the companies who continue to utilize remote capabilities need to make sure and do the little things employees need. Miller explains that remote companies might have a few extra challenges when it comes to showing employee appreciation, but the effort is just as significant. She suggests sending your employees surprises, such as cards and gifts, to let them know you’re thinking about them. She also offers a reward system where everyone can give co-workers points for being awesome. Miller says their method, called Bonusly, is a huge hit covering a more comprehensive scope of employee honors than just a nomination from a supervisor. In their reward system, Miller says employees can use their points to buy a variety of rewards.
In our post-pandemic world of work, Laura Miller thinks her company TempDev has some share-worthy tricks of the trade. Having developed a highly successful remote business before the pandemic, Miller knows there’s a market for doing business this way. The pandemic changed many aspects of our lives, some negatively. However, Miller believes the flexibility of remote-based enterprises should be one aspect that we salvage from the COVID-19 era.
