At Zoox, we recognize that caregiving and family responsibilities are an essential part of life. Statistically, caregiving also disproportionately affects women – with women making up 75% of the nation’s caregivers. Faced with dual responsibilities, many leave to focus full-time on caregiving or raising young children. For those who decide to return, it can feel like an intimidating and challenging process to jump back into the workforce.
In 2022, Zoox partnered with Path Forward, a non-profit that supports people reentering the workforce after a career break, to launch our first-ever returnship program. The placements are designed as an ‘on-ramp’ experience back to the workforce, with an emphasis on learning, development, and gaining (or re-gaining) of skills. Crew members joined our inaugural placement over a period of 16 weeks on our IT, procurement, and technical program management teams. At the completion of their returnship, 100% of returners were hired as full-time crew members.
Given the success of the initial launch, we are once again partnering with Path Forward to expand returnships at Zoox. We are increasing the number of returnship hires and adding returnships across several new teams, including software.
Here, you can find testimonials from several of our returnship graduates.