Several large companies bought into return-to-office, or RTO, in 2025, a trend that Glassdoor researchers said signaled a labor market shift in favor of employers. But where many companies see the office’s comeback as necessary, others, like Mindr, see it as a different sort of opportunity.
Mindr, based in Urbandale, Iowa, is the parent company of several substance detection, monitoring and safety firms. It has what CHRO Amanda Sedars called a “remote first” set up in which nearly all of its employees — located across all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico — work remotely.
The company has received a “Best Place for Working Parents” designation for five straight years, which Sedars said is in part a recognition of Mindr’s remote work-friendly culture.
“We’ve doubled our head count not by telling people where to be but by meeting them where they are,” Sedars said. “It gives them the freedom to be both a high achiever and a present parent or caregiver at the same time.”
Editor’s note: This conversation was edited for clarity and length.
HR DIVE: How is the work that Mindr does enhanced by a flexible environment?
AMANDA SEDARS: We believe that combining “remote first” with the flexibility and benefits to support it helps attract and retain talent. Before the pandemic, we were already about 50% remote first. Our competitors treated that flexibility as a pandemic-era emergency break. But we had already known it to be a long-term accelerator and continue to treat it as such.
Amanda Sedars, CHRO of Mindr
Permission granted by Mindr
We’ve used that philosophy to double our head count in three years, and we’ve maintained seven years of consecutive growth. We’ve seen that traditional companies are losing elite talent to those rigid RTO mandates — so we’re talent snagging.
That approach toward RTO is the opposite of what others are doing. Would you characterize your philosophy as “anti-RTO,” or perhaps as more of a perspective that the office isn’t everything?
We’ve never made the conversation specifically about RTO. We don’t manage by people in seats; we manage by milestones met. Regardless of where employees are sitting, we make sure we know they’re doing their jobs on the correct timeline.
To do that, we dedicate ourselves to things like S.M.A.R.T. goals and biweekly one-on-one meetings between leaders and their direct reports. We also keep our cameras on at all times. I still see all of the people who I work with, and they still see me.
We intentionally built a business that fits into real life. When you support the person, the work takes care of itself.
Aside from remote work, how else does Mindr help caregivers take care of their nonwork lives?
We ensure talent doesn’t have to choose between a paycheck and a loved one’s care. Everyone gets to decide what that looks like for them. We’re allowing our team to invest the time and money that they would spend commuting directly into their families. It’s really about protecting employees’ bottom lines by removing those hidden costs.
We also have core benefits, including expanded mental health and employee assistance programs as well as child care and elder care support programs.
How can leaders and executives help to integrate flexibility into a culture?
Leaders have to be able to live that. We don’t just say you have flexibility — we mean it. It’s about intentionality. We are role models for the culture we want. We once had an executive offer to come back from maternity leave after eight weeks. Our CEO said that while that would be fine, “I really want you to take 12.” And she did. If an executive can step away that long, so can you, and everything will be okay.
The talent market tends to be cyclical. Right now, we’re in an employer-friendly market where many have shied away from generous benefits like remote work. Do you expect a comeback in remote work if things change?
I’m hopeful. If you’re truly focused on the bottom line and what you can do to maintain productivity and growth, flexibility should always be popular. We don’t look at it as a perk; we look at it in terms of profitability. Our way to get to profitability also aligns with our mission of caring for people. From my perspective, that should always be in vogue. That should always be how we lead.
What advice would you give to other CHROs who want to embrace flexibility, especially when they’re likely to face pushback from C-suites?
It’s up to us to make the case. You can use historic, traditional HR metrics to tell that story, like turnover. If you do that, then you’ve got traction. We are living, growing proof that when a company can ease the caregiving crisis for its employees, it doesn’t just become a nice place to work; it creates a more resilient, higher performing and more profitable business.