How Highspot revamped their employee leave process

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Since 2012, Highspot has grown to nearly 800 talented employees working across seven countries. When the company needed help guiding employees through critical life milestones and transitions, they reached out to Sparrow.

Committing to a people-first workplace

Highspot aspires to be a place where every employee can be their true self. The company has worked hard to create an inclusive workplace culture where every employee feels valued, connected to their co-workers, and empowered to be an agent of change—at the company level and beyond. One area where Highspot demonstrates their commitment to employee well-being is benefits.

“We aim to deliver meaningful, inclusive, and comprehensive benefits to our employees and their families,” said Casey Vella, Senior Manager of Global Benefits at Highspot.

“We want to make sure we’re meeting our employees and their families where they’re at,” Vella added. In addition to extensive medical, dental, vision, disability, and life benefits, Highspot offers a health savings account with an employer contribution, 401(k) matching, and commuting benefits.

Highspot employees benefit from quarterly Recharge Fridays, two paid volunteer days per year, access to coaches and therapists through Modern Health, and Flexible Paid Time Off (PTO).

“I needed somebody to be an extension of our team to help our employees—and that was Sparrow.”

“We have Flexible PTO in six of our seven countries in some capacity,” Vella explained, “which is wonderful from a personal and a caregiving perspective. If an employee needs to care for a parent, child, or spouse, they have the ability to take the time to focus on their family.”

Another benefit Highspot employees love is the company’s parental leave policy, which offers 18 weeks of fully paid time off in the United States. “Being in tech, our biggest employee demographic is people in their twenties, thirties, and forties, so we want to ensure our parental offerings are strong,” said Vella.

“We want rich programs that are also sustainable. If I’m going to offer a benefit to our employees, I want it to be there as long as possible.”

Substantial time off, however, is just one component of a successful leave. To complement their generous leave policy, Highspot wanted to give employees a smoother overall leave experience, from requesting a leave to filing for benefits and eventually returning to work.

“Leaves are overwhelming: there are different types of leave and multiple forms employees are required to complete. Having one solid point of contact has made a very confusing experience easy for our employees.” 

The challenge: Giving employees a seamless leave experience with limited time and resources

Before partnering with Sparrow, Highspot used a different full-service leave management provider, but the experience didn’t check all their boxes. “When I joined Highspot, I realized quickly that our existing provider wasn’t actually meeting our employees’ needs,” said Vella.

Though the vendor handled leave compliance and paperwork, they couldn’t provide the support or one-on-one guidance Highspot employees deserved. “It was that extra personal touch that our employees weren’t getting,” Vella added.

“Figuring out how paid leave and FMLA works can be really confusing and intimidating,” she explained. Highspot employees, she said, often didn’t have enough information about the process or which steps they had to take to file for benefits.

Not to mention, Vella was a team of one at the time, and working with limited resources. “Employees taking leave is more common than you think,” she said, “and I didn’t have the bandwidth to have those hand-holding conversations with people, even though I wanted to.”

Determined to improve Highspot’s employee leave experience from start to finish, Vella began exploring other leave vendors. When she found out about Sparrow’s high-touch employee care, she was sold.

“I needed somebody to come in and be that extra partner, an extension of our team to help our employees—and that was Sparrow.”

The solution: Partnering with Sparrow for one-on-one employee support

With Sparrow on their team, Highspot has dramatically improved their employee leave experience. Sparrow works one-on-one with each Highspot employee taking leave, starting with an introductory call. In that call, a Sparrow Leave Specialist explains which benefits an employee is entitled to, breaks down the benefits filing process, and answers questions.

“Our employees now have a single point of contact for all things leave-related,” said Vella. “In the world of leave of absences, where there are different types of leave and multiple forms employees are required to complete, the process can be overwhelming. Having one solid point of contact has made what can be a very confusing experience easy for our employees.”

After the initial call, Sparrow takes over, completing and submitting paperwork on the employee’s behalf, then coordinating with state agency representatives and insurance providers to fill in any information gaps and follow up on documents.

Vella’s team has gotten direct feedback from Highspot employees—and their spouses—about how straightforward and stress-free the filing process was for them. “Employees have told us that their spouses are jealous of the service Sparrow is able to provide them when navigating entitlements, forms, and questions about their pay. We love that type of feedback! It doesn’t get much better,” said Vella.

Central to that ease, said Vella, is the pay transparency Sparrow provides. Not only do Sparrow Leave Specialists tell employees exactly how much pay to expect—and which portions will come from where—Sparrow automates payroll calculations and generates custom payroll reports for Highspot.

“It’s really important that people understand where their pay is coming from,” said Vella. “Having Sparrow educate our employees on how leave pay works and where it comes from has been really helpful. Now employees are active participants in the process.”

“Employees have told us that their spouses are jealous of the service Sparrow is able to provide them when navigating entitlements, forms, and questions about their pay."

Sparrow simplifies administrative work

Sparrow’s end-to-end leave services don’t just make a difference to Highspot employees on leave—they also streamline Vella’s internal processes.

“Next to employee satisfaction, compliance is my biggest concern,” she explained. Though the majority of Highspot’s US employees are in Seattle near the company’s headquarters, they have employees working from 30 states.

“We needed Sparrow to help us navigate all the Washington state laws,” Vella explained. “But we also have people in California and Colorado—all the states that have more complex leave laws.”

Having Sparrow decipher state leave laws, stay up-to-date on the latest changes, and keep track of deadlines is a huge weight off of Vella’s shoulders. “I don’t even think about compliance because I know Sparrow has it covered,” she said. “It’s one less thing I have to worry about in my world as a benefits professional, which is a much-appreciated relief.”

Vella and her team also appreciate Sparrow’s responsiveness and proactivity. “When we’re trying to finalize payroll files and we have leaves in flux, my benefits specialist gets fast responses from the Sparrow team,” she explained. “It makes a big difference for us and our employees.”

Sparrow fills out and submits benefits paperwork on Highspot’s behalf, keeping Vella’s team updated along the way. That service, combined with Sparrow’s payroll support, has saved Highspot significant time and money.

“We’re able to leverage what we would be paying our employees through some of the state benefits, and Sparrow is able to step in with those filings and make it easier,” Vella explained. “We used to have a voluntary plan in Washington, and we went away from that. That is a measurable savings for the company.”

“We leverage what we would be paying our employees through state benefits, and Sparrow steps in with those filings and make it easier."

The result: An easier employee leave experience

Partnering with Sparrow has given Highspot greater backend efficiency and total peace of mind around compliance, not to mention a smoother, stress-free employee leave experience.

“Leave can be triggered by stressful life changes,” Vella added. “Someone could be having major surgery or supporting a family member suffering from a major illness, so it’s always our goal to think about how to best support them through that life change. How do we make sure they feel okay to go out on a medical leave, that they’re supported, that they have income protection?”

The answer: Sparrow’s high-touch employee leave management solution.

“We don’t want our employees to worry about anything, whether it’s paperwork or pay,” explained Vella. “We just want them to focus on themselves and/or their family first.” With Sparrow, they can.

When employees feel cared for during major life moments, the entire company benefits. Give your people the stress-free leave they deserve with Sparrow. *Browse Sparrow’s offerings * or book a demo today.