Samsara

What caused you to start thinking about family-forming benefits at Samsara?

Samsara has a very high performance culture. From a benefits perspective, we want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to support that. We aim to be at the top of the market where benefits are concerned, and we really value our employee feedback. 

We also want to ensure that our benefits reflect the fact that we want Samsara to be a welcoming place for everyone. A lot of our employees are at the age where they’re starting to think about starting a family.  As the company was growing, our team wanted to be deliberate about making Samsara a good place to work for families. As an employer, we want our people to know we support them on that. We want to make sure our people are being taken care of. Our team listened to employee feedback and, after learning more about Carrot, we knew it was going to be the right fit.

What was most important in choosing Carrot for Samsara?

We have a global population, and it’s super important that the benefits offered to our employees are consistent for everyone. The last thing we want is for employees in our growing EMEA offices to feel like only people in our San Francisco headquarters get premium benefits — that just isn’t good for building culture or morale. So, it’s very important to us that all of our benefits are offered globally. 

Inclusivity was also important in choosing Carrot. We wanted to provide a benefit that supports same-sex couples, single employees, and global employees all in the same way. We had feedback from LGBTQ+ employees in particular that other options only covered in-vitro fertilization (IVF), and that coverage usually required an underlying diagnosis, leaving a ton of people out. We also wanted to make sure that adoption and gestational carrier (GC) support was an easily accessible part of anything we offered. Carrot offered all of that.

What kind of feedback have you received from employees about Carrot? 

We’ve received amazing feedback — and not just from the people using the benefit. It’s probably the thing people get most excited about during onboarding. And among our employees who have used the benefit, the experience has been positive. You do such a great job on the facility side with the provider network. The inclusivity component has been huge, too. I’ve had multiple people tell me how much they love the program.

How has your approach to benefits evolved amidst COVID-19? 

It’s been interesting. Our employees really loved some of our in-office perks, but since those have stopped, we’ve had to get creative. One big change is we shifted from a structured approach to benefits to one that’s flexible. For example, we implemented a wellness fund and, after feedback, are now expanding that fund to cover expenses for new parents and home office equipment. We’ve also expanded our mental health support to help any employees dealing with social isolation and other challenges.

We’ve also doubled down on supporting parents and those pursuing parenthood — we’re super flexible on hours and encourage no-meeting blocks. We also were able to take some old iPads that weren’t being used in our office and convert them for our employees’ children to use to support at-home education.

How important are fertility and family-forming benefits to your employees? 

Family-forming benefits are definitely at the top of the list. Every day, I hear more stories about employees and their “Carrot babies.”

There’s no question that it’s critical that we continue to support our employees on their family-forming journeys. This is the one benefit that can absolutely change people’s lives.  

What impact has Carrot had on your organization? 

In a recent survey, 100% of Samsara employees said that they are more likely to stay at Samsara longer because of Carrot. Carrot also has a 99% CSAT score among Samsara employees. To me, that makes it clear that our employees are very happy with Carrot.

It’s also truly a great recruiting and retention tool that has set Samsara apart from a lot of companies and we are proud of that. And just knowing that this is truly a benefit that will change people's lives — it’s so rewarding to see as a benefits leader.

How would you describe Carrot to other benefits leaders? 

Carrot is a benefit that will absolutely change people’s lives. It’s easy to implement, easy to manage — it’s really a no brainer to add Carrot benefits. It’s been amazing to work with Carrot.