COMPANY: Hulafrog, Inc.
HQ: Red Bank, NJ
INDUSTRY: Digital Media
COMPANY VISION: To connect parents to the best resources for kids in their communities, as well as to each other, and create the best-ever alternative career for moms
EMPLOYEES: 36 & growing! (Hulafrog is hiring– find out how you can become a publisher and own your own schedule)
FLEX PROGRAMS:
- Schedule your work day so that it fits into your family schedule
- Never work on your child’s birthday
- Never worry about leaving for a sporting event, doctor’s appointment or class play
- Never worry when you need to be home with a sick child
- Join a conference call with a baby cooing or crying in the background
Q&A with Sherry Lombardi, co-founder
1. How did Hulafrog’s flex norms come to be?
Hulafrog is unique in that we built it from scratch around the mission of creating a challenging and rewarding career for women with kids where they can work from home on their own hours. This is the Publisher role, the woman in charge of a local Hulafrog market. As long as she is hitting her goals, when and where she works is her choice.
We are somewhat of a mashup of a direct sales type business, a franchise organization and a great part-time job. Our publishers are independent contractors, but they are all an equal and important part of our team working part time. And in many ways they are running their own local business under our umbrella.
2. What is it about your company’s culture that makes it possible for everyone to work when it best suits their family’s schedule?
The fact that our own sales & marketing funnel starts with the Publisher. We must create a job that is uniquely catered to her and beats anything else she might want to do. So having a great flex program is not a benefit we offer, it is a necessity for attracting the best talent to our organization. Since our Publishers are all professional women with young kids at home, we must cater to them. What they demand most, is flexibility.
3. How or when does most of your team work?
All of our local Publishers work under the same structure. Our core team operates the same way. Even if their hours are full-time equivalent, almost everyone works “school hours” so they can be with their kids when they need them. They supplement that time in other windows when kids are in bed — like early morning and evenings if they need to.
4. Have these initiatives helped with your recruiting?
For us, yes. The reason we get so many applications to Hulafrog (right now about 200 a month) is because there are SOOO many great women looking for a career alternative that can be done from home on a flexible schedule. As you know, those options remain few and far between. And many of the part-time jobs that are close to home are just far less challenging than what the education and work experience of these women justifies.
Any company that figures out how to create jobs like this is tapping into a huge opportunity in today’s workforce.
5. How would you advise other companies thinking about implementing something similar?
Do it – you are tapping into an under-appreciated and untapped segment of the workforce.
