How Everlane delivers a simple, stress-free employee leave experience

American clothing retailer Everlane is beloved for their minimalist designs and high-quality materials. Everlane customers can shop a wide variety of elevated basics, from classic denim jackets and silk button-downs to everyday cotton V-necks and comfortable low-heeled boots.

Everlane’s accessible, timeless aesthetic isn’t the only reason the company has garnered a huge customer base—they’ve also built a reputation as an ethical retailer. Everlane is committed to ethical and fair labor practices, environmental sustainability and waste reduction, and radical transparency around their materials and manufacturing process.

Since starting in 2010, the company—which was previously exclusively ecommerce-based—has now opened 11 brick-and-mortar stores across six states. They have 300 employees working throughout those stores, as well as in the company’s San Francisco headquarters and their satellite office in Los Angeles.

Evolving in service of employees

One of Everlane’s core company beliefs is that everyone can—and should—make a difference. The company applies that philosophy not only to their products and environmental footprint, but to their internal goals as well.

“Expanding our employee benefits is always a priority of ours,” said David Solomon, People Operations Manager at Everlane. “When I started in my role, we had recently expanded our parental leave benefit to 16 weeks of paid parental leave for all parents.”

“We've been very happy to offer Sparrow because leaves themselves can be onerous for employees to take on alone. Having a trusted partner is extremely helpful.”

The company also enhanced their retirement savings offer, adding a 401(k) employer match, which Solomon said was in high demand.

“Another key area we’ve built upon is mental health,” he added. “We incorporated Modern Health to offer our employees free access to therapy and a variety of other mental health tools and resources.”

To support their employee leave policies, Everlane partners with Sparrow for end-to-end employee leave management.

Relying on Sparrow for employee leave management from start to finish

A complete leave management solution, Sparrow offers Everlane one-on-one employee support and high-touch administrative automations.

“We’ve been very happy to offer Sparrow because leaves themselves can be onerous for employees to take on alone,” said Solomon. “Having a partner is extremely helpful.”

Every Everlane employee taking leave gets paired up with a dedicated Sparrow Leave Specialist, who schedules an introductory call with them to review their benefits, explain the filing process in detail, and answer questions.

“Our employees only have positive things to say about the communication they've received from the Sparrow team, and about their experience dealing with any issues that have come up throughout their leaves.”

From there, Sparrow fills out and submits benefits paperwork on the employee’s behalf. Along the way, Sparrow Leave Specialists follow up with state agency representatives and insurance providers to check in on application statuses and gather any missing information.

“Our employees only have positive things to say about the communication they’ve received from the Sparrow team, and about their experience dealing with any issues that have come up throughout their leaves,” Solomon shared.

On the employer side, Sparrow takes care of everything so Solomon and his team don’t have to. “Having Sparrow makes HR’s job easier and also cuts down on the possibility of compliance issues,” he explained.

“Having Sparrow makes HR’s job easier and also cuts down on the possibility of compliance issues.”

That’s because Sparrow Leave Specialists stay up to date on complex state leave laws and nuanced filing processes, ensuring Everlane complies with state mandates while giving their employees the best support possible.

“Sparrow has really iterated through their administrative experience over the years and made leave management a lot easier for us,” Solomon said. “The process runs smoothly enough that we never think about it.”

In addition to completing and submitting paperwork on Everlane’s behalf, Sparrow also automates the company’s payroll calculations and creates custom payroll reports.

“Our payroll experience has been simple and seamless thanks to Sparrow,” Solomon said. “The payroll integration has really complemented our leave policies and top-off approach. For a parental leave, for example, there might be a short-term disability policy, a state benefit, and also a group policy, so being able to sync those up and plug the payroll in has been very valuable.”

“Sparrow reaching out to our managers directly as opposed to having us be the liaison has made our day-to-day a lot easier. It’s taken a lot off of our plates as time has gone on.”

One feature Solomon especially appreciates is the Sparrow dashboard, which provides both high-level and granular information on Everlane’s active leaves, upcoming leaves, and leave dates and types. “The dashboard is really easy to use and has a nice visual flow,” he added.

Solomon and his team also take advantage of Sparrow’s HR Business Partners Dashboard and Manager Dashboard, which keep HRBPs and managers in the loop about employee leaves.

“Sparrow reaching out to our managers directly as opposed to having us be the liaison has made our day-to-day a lot easier,” he shared. “It’s taken a lot off of our plates as time has gone on.”

“The Sparrow experience has been so seamless and positive that other leave providers haven’t even been a temptation.”

Improving every aspect of leave with Sparrow

Sparrow’s leave management technology and hands-on customer service give Solomon and his team more time and mental bandwidth.

“My role has expanded since I started, and a lot of those expansion responsibilities would have been so much more difficult if we were on our own calculating payroll, helping employees fill out the different leave forms, and doing all the other leave management tasks that take so much time,” he explained.

Plus, with Sparrow, Everlane employees get a smooth, painless leave experience. “Sparrow’s competitors have reached out to us,” said Solomon, “but the Sparrow experience has been so seamless and positive that other leave providers haven’t even been a temptation.”

Sparrow simplifies employee leave management without sacrificing the employee leave experience. Explore our offerings or book a demo today..