The tech company uses Sparrow for end-to-end employee leave management.
Astranis is an American technology company that designs, builds and operates advanced geostationary communications satellites. The company’s small, radiation-hardened satellites bring connectivity to remote areas and support critical science and communications missions at a fraction of the cost of traditional upper orbit satellites
Astranis has more than 10 satellites on contract for key customers around the world, including Space Force, NASA, and other government partners. The company’s latest project: building and launching Taiwan’s first dedicated satellite.
Since Astranis was founded in 2015, the company has raised a staggering $750 million from leading venture capital firms and grown their team to over 400 passionate employees. When they needed a more efficient way to care for employees during major life changes, they reached out to Sparrow.
Supporting employees to do their best work and live their best lives
Astranis’s ambitious mission attracts employees who feel called to do meaningful, globally impactful work. Because of the nature of what they build, every single satellite is a high stakes project, and there’s a real all-hands-on-deck mindset, according to Ian Larue, Total Rewards Manager at Astranis.
That’s part of the reason Astranis is so intent on taking outstanding care of their employees. For Ian, prioritizing employees means a robust benefits program isn’t a bonus—it’s a given.
Astranis offers comprehensive healthcare for employees and their families, employee stock options, One Medical memberships, flexible paid time off, a 401(k), commuter reimbursements, and paid leave.
For Larue and his team, it’s important to not only provide excellent care options, but also ensure that employees have the tools and support needed to access and maximize those benefits.
To do that, the team goes out of their way to communicate proactively with employees, and makes themselves available for feedback and questions at all times.
However, as Astranis began to grow, Larue’s team needed more support.
The challenge: Managing leave internally for a growing employee population
Before partnering with Sparrow for employee leave management, Astranis managed employee leaves in-house. Managing leaves was simple enough for Larue to do himself, but the situation changed once Astranis’s headcount began to increase. Within a year, it became clear that leave management had become a bottleneck.
There were times when multiple people were either going out on leave or coming back from leave at once, and Larue wasn’t able to provide the level of support he wanted for employees.
Guiding employees through benefits paperwork was challenging, as was finding the time to check in frequently. Larue wanted to get ahead of potential problems by searching for a leave provider.
When Astranis’s VP of People went on maternity leave, it proved to be one of the most complicated and cumbersome cases to manage, and was a clear example of the opportunity to improve the efficiency and timeliness of the process.
When looking into employee leave management vendors, Larue had two distinct but overlapping motivations: first, to improve the employee leave experience, and second, to reduce the employer administrative burden.
Leave management was a source of anxiety for Larue, who is not an expert in leave and has many other responsibilities. Finding the right partner could provide more confidence in compliance and improve the employee experience.
The solution: Outsourcing leave management to Sparrow
When Larue started reviewing leave management providers, Sparrow stood out right away. There was no one doing the same thing as Sparrow; it felt like a one-horse race by the time it came down to making a decision.
Larue was drawn to Sparrow’s compliance expertise, hands-on employee guidance, and fixed price model. The absence of a subscription fee—just a case fee—was a positive surprise.
The business model of relieving administrators and employees of paperwork made it an easy decision.
Now, with Sparrow managing employee leave from end to end, Larue has more peace of mind in his day-to-day work. One of the benefits he values most is that leave is handled for you, and someone is actively taking care of it.
Sparrow stays up to date on California leave laws, fills out employer paperwork for Astranis, and guides Astranis employees through each step of filing for state benefits.
Larue appreciates the Sparrow dashboard, which provides both big-picture and granular views of leaves at Astranis. He values the ability to see timelines and visualize employee leaves, considering it one of the most valuable forms of support for ensuring employees understand their leave process.
Sparrow also streamlines payroll reconciliation for Astranis, setting up automatic payroll calculations and creating custom payroll reports. This has been a time-saver and a game-changer for figuring out the financial aspects and for understanding how multiple sources of income combine.
Astranis employees, meanwhile, get one-on-one support from the moment they request a leave to the moment they return to work. All types of leaves are a potentially life-changing experience, and on top of dealing with those changes and stress, employees historically had to cope with many hours of bureaucracy and paperwork. The goal at Astranis is for employees to avoid that additional burden.
With Sparrow, Astranis employees can focus on themselves before and during their leaves, instead of getting bogged down with forms and phone calls.
Sparrow Leave Specialists kick off the leave process by holding one-on-one chats with Astranis employees to explain benefits, go over the filing process, and answer questions. Sparrow then submits paperwork on the employees’ behalf, and Leave Specialists coordinate with state agencies and insurance providers as needed.
Employees have told Larue that they have been blown away by their experience with Sparrow. Leave is one of the few places where he receives unsolicited feedback from employees expressing gratitude and surprise at how easy the process has become.
The result: A clear path to internal growth
Astranis is on an exciting trajectory, having put up four satellites last year on a single launch—and the company is just getting started.
Larue’s team has more time and focus to invest in internal growth thanks to Sparrow streamlining leave management and enhancing the employee leave experience.
For the People team, the next stage is all about questioning systems and processes through the lens of scalability.
Sparrow takes leave management off your plate, so you have more time to scale. See what we offer or book a demo today