Two years in, our virtual-first model is here to stay, and it’s only getting better.

Two years ago, in the height of a worldwide pandemic, we made the decision to throw our perceptions of what the workplace has been and should be out the window. We were certain that “going back” to an old way of working would never be an option for us as a company after experiencing the benefits virtual work brought us — more flexibility, increased productivity, and benefits from hiring beyond our office locations. So we challenged ourselves to think proactively and intentionally about building something entirely new, with flexibility, equity, and inclusion at its core.

The questions we asked, and the feedback we heard from our employees, led us to embrace a virtual-first, not virtual-only model. While the rest of the world debated the virtues of in-person vs. remote work or how to make hybrid work work, we made geographic flexibility and a commitment to in-person connection our North Star.

Fast forward to today, and our commitment to pioneering a new way of work hasn’t wavered. While many companies back-peddled and mandated a return to the office, we’re continuing to iterate upon and invest in our vision of a virtual-first workplace coupled with high-quality in-person events and collaboration.

Virtual-first work is working for us

We’ve learned so much since embarking on this journey. Our number one lesson: the importance of being willing to experiment, learn, fail and iterate. Here are a few things we now know about our model:

If there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that virtual-work at Thumbtack is here to stay. We now have the data to back up our belief that giving Thumbtackers the flexibility to choose where they live and work would yield immensely positive results across our organization. The results speak for themselves: we’ve seen a 10% increase in self-reported employee satisfaction since 2020 and we’re hovering at an all time high productivity with a 10% increase from 2020.

Pre-covid, 100 percent of our employees lived within 50 miles of our offices in San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Manila. Today, that number is about 44 percent. We now have people living and working across more than 30 U.S. states, the Philippines, and Canada. As a result, our workforce has become more diverse and our team has been able to redesign their lives — whether that means more travel, more time with family, or making long-desired cross-country moves.

• Employees report an increased sense of belonging — thanks in large part to our in-person events
• Employees today feel more set up than ever to work productively while being remote
• Our employees are happy to be at Thumbtack and would recommend their manager
• Work-life balance is at an all-time high
• Collaboration matters as much as connection

Our employees are also increasingly taking ownership of their workweek, thanks to company-wide working norms we’ve established (such as no-meeting Wednesdays, collaborative working hours, and company shutdown weeks). These moments allow our employees time to truly disconnect and unplug during breaks as well as flexibility in their schedules to work in a way that best fits their day-to-day lives. Through our quarterly pulse check surveys, we’ve found that:

Our initial vision focused on virtual-first work coupled with high-quality in-person connection points through regular employee gatherings such as in-person offsites, company-wide camp, and local community events. Our assumptions proved true that fostering personal connections would be essential to making a virtual-first model work — more than 91 percent of our team members who attended global offsites this year reported leaving with deeper relationships. But that wasn’t the whole story.

From our most recent survey, we learned that focused team breakouts were our employees’ top-valued interactions during in-person events. What Thumbtackers value most has turned out to be opportunities that combine collaborative work, time with their direct teams and cross-functional partners and unstructured social time. In other words, fostering productive in-person collaboration is just as important for our teams as having fun together. Armed with these evolving insights, we’re rethinking our approach to events and piloting take-over-style offsites in our Libraries and around the country rather than focusing exclusively on large-group and connection-only gatherings.

Anchored by flexibility — and our values

In the future, we’ll be taking advantage of our custom-built physical ‘Library’ space to host regular team get-togethers — with a focus on collaboration, brainstorming and planning — and more low-key opportunities for people to foster connections and socialize IRL. Of course, we’ll continue to test, learn and iterate as our leaders and employees share feedback and ideas for the future.

We firmly believe there’s no such thing as “kind of flexible.” Virtual-first work can work for anyone, but it requires an all-in commitment from employers. For us, flexibility has always been at the core of who we are — because it empowers us to fit work into our lives, not the other way around. From the start, this has been a learning process for our team. We’ve learned how important it is to go into rethinking what work means with curiosity and a willingness to experiment, fail, and continue to iterate. Because of this, to date, we’ve seen a nearly 14% increase in employee reported work-life balance since 2020.

Furthermore, we don’t believe going back to the old way of working is a long-term solution for any business that wants to attract and retain great people.

That’s why we’ve decided to lean even further into flexibility with our new international travel policy. As of this year, employees are able to work from almost anywhere in the world for varying amounts of time (depending on country and time zone). Already, we’ve had employees taking advantage of this program — with trips of various lengths to Portugal, Colombia, and more. In doing so, our employees are able to take extended trips that enable them to work while visiting family in other countries or spend time traveling and exploring new places. Coupled with our flexible time off policy, our employees now have the flexibility to combine their PTO with their work time in locations that help them live their best lives.

Ultimately, our biggest insight has been how much living our values matters in order to make virtual-first work work for us. Practicing our values requires self-awareness, candor, and the courage to tackle challenges head on and make changes when necessary. These are also the attributes every single Thumbtacker has summoned to create a new future of work. Today, we’re exceedingly proud of the workplace we’re building together — and equally excited to continue learning, growing, and improving.

Interested in joining Thumbtack? Learn more about our open roles at www.thumbtack.com/careers

By Jelena Djordjevic and Alysia Young