Many of the largest tech companies in the US are pushing for employees to return to the office, but Atlassian Inc remains a steadfast supporter of remote work. According to Annie Dean, the company’s vice president of “team anywhere,” Atlassian has committed to a workplace model that does not require mandatory office attendance. With over 11,000 employees, Atlassian is currently the largest company in the world that is fully committed to distributed work on this scale. Dean believes that remote collaboration, combined with periodic in-person gatherings, increases productivity and allows the Australian-founded software company to attract better talent. She mentioned that over half of the people hired in the past year live more than two hours away from an office. Other companies also supporting remote work include Airbnb Inc and Twilio Inc, with no office-return rules for their respective 6,000 and 6,400 employees. Autodesk Inc, Dropbox Inc, Okta Inc, and Gitlab Inc are additional tech employers that do not mandate office attendance.
Meanwhile, Rebecca Pearce, chief people officer at Autodesk, wrote in a blog post that the company will not implement corporate return-to-office mandates for its hybrid and remote-based employees. Prior to Atlassian, Dean led Meta Platforms Inc’s remote work initiative. Starting in September, the social media platform will require its employees to work in the office three days a week. Amazon.com Inc is also implementing new office rules that require some corporate workers to relocate, and International Business Machines Corp’s Arvind Krishna announced that those who are not on site will have fewer promotion opportunities. Additionally, companies like Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc and BlackRock Inc have increased their expected in-office time to four days a week.
Despite these new mandates, the return-to-office data does not show significant changes. According to Kastle Systems, attendance in 10 of the largest US business districts last week was less than half of pre-Covid levels, similar to figures at the beginning of 2023. The San Jose, California area, which is home to many technology companies, reported the lowest office attendance during that period at only 37.5% of pre-pandemic levels.
Atlassian’s Dean believes that companies will not universally adopt more restrictive office policies. She argues that many of these decisions are not based on solid data. According to Dean, real productivity problems include back-to-back meetings, lack of clarity regarding goals, overflowing inboxes, and vague processes – none of which can be resolved simply by returning to the office. She emphasizes the importance of addressing these issues rather than requiring employees to work on-site.
– Bloomberg
Credit: The Star : News Feed
