How Hubilo cultivated an empowering, positive workplace culture in a remote everything world

This article was produced in partnership with Hubilo.

Vaibhav Jain, CEO and Founder at Hubilo sat down with HRD Asia to discuss their mass hiring experience.

Hubilo has seen extraordinary growth over a very short span of time thanks to their COVID-19-initiated pivot from an attendee recommendation platform for in-person events to becoming a leading virtual and hybrid events platform as the pandemic progressed.

This growth has meant a sharp bump of their employees. In April 2020, Hubilo had around 30 employees and a base office in India, with a three-person management team overseeing a small IT, marketing, and sales team.

Since then it has grown to include new hires of executives with diverse backgrounds, experience and expertise to drive business growth across the globe alongside over 300 additional employeesacross Dev,  IT, Sales, Marketing, Finance, CSM, HR, and a few other divisions. “We are now also co-headquartered in  both India and the US,” Vaibhav Jain, CEO and Founder at Hubilo told HRD.

“We plan to expand again, across our business and corporate development, product, engineering, and design teams, and grow our go-to-market teams across the globe. In addition, we will set up sales offices in key regions to expand our operations and supporta greater volume of customers,” Jain says.

As expected, expanding a team at this speed and volume creates challenges and opportunities.

“We have always placed a high value on quality over quantity. We were meticulous in our selection of applicants, choosing those with skill sets and values aligned with ours – and people who had a passion for growing and helping Hubilo reach greater heights.”

Being a digitally-driven company in these socially distant times has worked to Hubilo’s advantage.

Jain adds: “Despite our many divisions, we're still able to host a company-wide onboarding remotely. In fact, we take complete advantage of the Hubilo platform's versatility. Besides hosting large-scale conferences and trade shows, Hubilo can also host sales kick-offs, town halls, career fairs, including employee onboarding, induction, and periodic follow-ups from HR to ensure that they are settling in well and supporting them with their transition.”

“We have launched the Hubilo Academy to better partner with our people and make learning more accessible. This forum encourages an active exchange of ideas and learning, skills-sharing, and mutual growth is encouraged through self-serve platforms, internal and external expert-led sessions.

“We also celebrate multiple cultural holidays and acknowledge every employee’s birthday with a cake delivered to their home. Even in a remote environment, we have invested heavily in creating moments that surprise and delight employees no matter where they are.

“Upon signing with Hubilo, every employee receives a home-office budget to create their own ideal workspace. In addition, they are regularly treated to free meals through DoorDash gift certificates so that they can order a meal from the company account. And ourur compensation is highly competitive and comes with equity and bonuses.”

Jain says they’ve also learned that allowing employees to determine where and when they work is essential to attracting the best and most diverse talent from around the world.

Moving forward, Jain says Hubilo is on a mission to drive deep engagement for virtual and hybrid events inthe workplace.

“We believe an engaged workforce translates to improved productivity where employees can generate new ideas and innovations. It increases employee retention and reduces turnover. A happier and healthier workplace, be it physical or remote, provides a good environment for everyone and sets the groundwork for business growth.

As to the expected employee experience in 2022, Jain says they are looking at three major areas.

“As companies realise the cost savings from [employees working from home], the question of when works get done is at hand. For many, that will result in asynchronous work schedules so that people not only work when they are at their best, but also to make work more inclusive for employees who need flexibility because of childcare, eldercare, pet care, or other priorities.

This has implications for employee engagement, which Hubilo believes is best managed by doubling down on culture and connection. “As opposed to 'me talking at you' all-hands meetings and more video fatigue-inducing 1:1 meetings, consider an engagement platform that creates engaging and immersive company events regardless of their size. It is time to rethink old stale formats of social gatherings, DE&I celebrations, SKOs and Learning & Development activities in an evergreen, asynchronous way that engages employees,” he says.

Neither last nor least, Jain says 3 out of 4 workers report that a diverse workforce is an important factor when evaluating job offers and companies.

“For us, the biggest challenge has been creating the right work culture across diverse teams, in different countries and timezones, and in a hybrid working model. So far, I believe we have been able to build it well and will continue to do better.”

Learn more about Hubilo here.

Vaibhav Jain is the CEO and Founder of the leading global virtual and hybrid event technology company, Hubilo. Under Vaibhav’s leadership, Hubilo has raised over $150M through three successful funding rounds in less than a year through a leading hedge fund and Venture Capital firms globally. The company continues to grow exponentially, internally and geographically, and Vaibhav’s vision is to create a solution that works for every possible industry where content and community can come together beyond the business world.