How Dropbox is becoming a „virtual first“ company
… and how other companies are approaching the „the normal“.
Dropbox goes virtual first
If you have followed this publication for a while you know that I have argued 🌐 that even companies that adopt a „hybrid“ working model and give employees the option of working either remotely or in the office should adopt a „remote first“ mindset.
My employer Dropbox has done just that now. But rather than becoming a „hybrid“ company, we have announced that we would become „virtual first“ 🌐.
So what does that mean?
- We have seen that many employees want to continue WFH but we found that going fully remote could impact company culture while a hybrid model could lead to barriers to inclusion and inequities.
- Going forward, remote work will be the primary working experience for Dropbox employees and we will completely re-create our offices as „Dropbox Studios“ for collaborative (instead of individual) work.
- We will also make our work days non-linear to make best use of the flexibility of remote work while maintaining „core collaboration hours“ and creating agreements for working together on a team and individual level.
- Dropbox will support all employees with re-designed processes, a virtual-first toolkit that we’ll also make available to the public and individual support to help everyone settle in their new work environment.
I am really excited about this change!
But last week not only brought news from Dropbox and our future of work strategy. So what are other companies doing?
- Slack CEO Steward Butterfield 🌐 thinks that companies will not be able to opt out from the WFH trend and insist that employees come into the office. And they’re walking the talk and have has just hired a remote executive!
- Flexible office firm IWG 🌐 believes in a shift from inner-city to suburban working and adjusts their portfolio accordingly. They also placed its subsidiary Regus 🌐 into insolvency to persuade landlords to lower rents.
- In Germany, most large companies are preparing for a hybrid working model and some are planning to reduce their office footprint. Spiegel Online 🌐 has details on the thirty biggest companies.
- If you just want the facts & figures: Bruce Daisley has them for you.
✨ My curated reading list on the remote work experiment that we currently live through expands week for week. I have started to collect and tag all articles discussed here in this Notion document 🌐 for easy reference. And if you like this reading list, please consider subscribing via Medium and leave a 👏. Thank you!
