In the distant past of pre-pandemic San Francisco, residents once spent an average of 32.8 minutes traveling to work, the seventh longest commute in the country. Then two years ago, almost as quickly as it cleared the streets of cars, the global pandemic emptied conference rooms and closed offices, scattering office workers across the land. As economic priorities shifted in this fast-changing environment, the city’s high-profile corporate tenants began reevaluating the need for a physical presence in the world’s most famous tech hub.
But outside the shuttered and subleased offices, connected by the tenuous digital threads of Zoom and Slack, the gears of productivity keep turning. Work output has not only survived the transition to remote, it’s thrived — though often at the cost of burnout and isolation. While many employees are still reluctant to tether themselves to an office desk five days a week, some are willing to compromise a few days a week to escape the blurred boundaries of a home office and recharge socially with coworkers.
As such, hybrid workplaces have become a key ingredient of post-pandemic work-life balance. All of a sudden, commutes are manageable; coffee chats and happy hours can be in-person or virtual; and social relief from remote attrition is just a ride away. With 52 percent of employees surveyed by McKinsey preferring a flexible office model, tech leaders now have an ideal solution at hand: Get some use out of their expensive campuses and maintain worker satisfaction. Coupled with robust virtual connections on both a human and logistic level, hybrid workplaces have a chance to redefine America’s corporate outlook.
What that means for each company, however, remains unclear; the degree of flexibility offered to employees certainly varies. To get a better understanding of what a hybrid policy actually looks like in practice, Built In SF sat down with three companies that have reclaimed the commercial streets of San Francisco — for a couple of days a week, at least.
Discord is an online communications platform that unites users by common interests.
How would you describe your current work model?
At Discord, everyone works from the same HQ: the Discord platform. This gave us a leg up when things shifted because we were already a virtual-first workplace. At the same time, we haven’t done away with our office because we want employees to have the flexibility to choose what physical work environment is right for them. But it’s more than some people working from the office and some people working elsewhere, because we have our platform to unite us.
Our virtual-first approach means we plan for everything with the assumption that everyone is working online. This makes it easier to ensure we’re accommodating all staff fairly because the default expectation is that we connect virtually. To maintain this model, we leverage our platform and other digital tools to allow equitable visibility and access to content. We emphasize the importance of soliciting input and documenting it so it’s accessible for all stakeholders, regardless of where they are physically. We’ve also implemented a “one person, one screen” guideline, so people who choose to work from the office join meetings the same way they would from home, ensuring collaboration feels the same for all.
How often are employees expected to come into the office, and why does this schedule work for your company?
No employees are expected or required to come into the office at this time, beyond those who help the office run on a daily basis. We want our office to be available to anyone who chooses to work on-site, while allowing those who prefer to work from the comfort of their own home the option to do so. This flexible approach works for Discord because no matter where we are working, we are all one collaborative team thanks to our very own platform.
Looking ahead at our long-term approach, we will continue to provide this level of flexibility for each of our employees, with the few exceptions of those who need to be in an office setting to accomplish the core responsibilities of their role.
What are the key cultural or organizational ingredients that make your hybrid model work?
Our mission is to help people find belonging. This guides everything we do — both externally and internally. Whether employees are working from home, at the office or somewhere in between, our platform is designed to help bring people together and build community.
We dedicate a portion of our budget to both virtual and in-person get-togethers, though for the foreseeable future, internal employee events will remain virtual-first. We recently held a talent show for employees on our own platform. In addition, our all-hands meeting remains virtual, but is also live-streamed in the office for those who want to watch together.
Employees who do not need to be in the office have the flexibility to come in as often as they want to.”
Regardless of where our employees are, we emphasize the importance of communication, collaboration and the establishment of universal working norms. We conduct our interviewing and onboarding processes virtually to ensure an equitable experience for all. We’ve also implemented measures to ensure the comfort and safety of employees who choose to work from the office. In addition to requiring proof of vaccination status, we use a colored lanyard system to indicate social distancing preferences.
Course Hero is an online learning platform for students.
How would you describe your current work model?
At Course Hero, we believe flexibility is essential, which is why we have transitioned to being a virtual-first company. Centralized around our office hub locations, employees work primarily from home but have the option to go into an office for in-person collaboration, culture building and social gatherings.
How often are employees expected to come into the office, and why does this schedule work for your company?
Teams have the option to pop into the office at any time, however team leaders set the cadence on when larger teams should gather for off-sites. Our decision to be virtual-first was based on survey feedback that showed that 85 percent of employees were more productive working remotely and enjoyed the additional flexibility. The virtual-first approach enables employees to make decisions based on their work responsibilities and schedules.
What are the key cultural or organizational ingredients that make your hybrid model work?
We foster a culture that promotes a healthy work-life balance and encourages well-being. We have also built an employee experience with benefits and perks that support our people beyond the office. Some key ingredients that make our model work are hiring for virtual-first roles, no-meeting Wednesdays, a $500 work-from-home stipend and a monthly $200 home tech stipend. Additionally, one meal is on us every week, and every month we deliver goodie boxes straight to our employees’ doors.
85 percent of employees were more productive working remotely and enjoyed the additional flexibility.”
Philo is a subscription television service offering streaming and live programming.
How would you describe your current work model?
We have always placed a high value on in-person collaboration, but we also recognize that the world has changed in the past few years. In February, after a lot of careful thought, we adopted a policy called “remote control” — we’re a TV company that enjoys wordplay — which allows nearly everyone on the team to elect either to be hybrid or fully remote on a quarterly basis.
As a company, we want to give people the flexibility to choose the way of working that will enable them to do their best work, and we want to support both hybrid and remote as first-class experiences at Philo. Recognizing that many of the challenges people face in coming into the office are logistical, like childcare or a long commute, we created a new benefit to help offset these costs for Philons who choose the hybrid option.
How often are employees expected to come into the office, and why does this schedule work for your company?
People who elect the hybrid option are expected to come into the office at least three days per week. Generally, this ends up being Mondays, Wednesdays and one additional floating day. Since a big reason to be together in person is to take advantage of the high-bandwidth collaboration that can happen when sharing a physical space, we want to have as much predictability and overlap as we can in when other Philons will be in the office, while still offering flexibility to the hybrid members of our team.
We also set aside one week per quarter to bring everyone in the company together — both remote and hybrid — for focused collaboration and team building. This ensures we are maintaining personal connections with our colleagues, which is vital to our culture.
What are the key cultural or organizational ingredients that make your hybrid model work?
We have a strong culture of autonomy and ownership at Philo. We endeavor to give people flexibility to choose what they want to work on and to determine what will have the greatest impact on the company. We do much of our work in small, cross-functional, goal-based teams to minimize hierarchy, bureaucracy and office politics. Devolving a lot of the planning and prioritization to those who are closest to the work allows them to collaborate more nimbly without the need for constant oversight and unnecessary check-ins.
We have always placed a high value on in-person collaboration, but we also recognize that the world has changed.”
We operate with a very high degree of trust and transparency. We try to have as much of what we do at Philo be public to both the team, and in many cases, those outside the company. Our culture is designed to minimize job titles and seniority in our work, encouraging people to contribute broadly and feel empowered to reach out directly to others to get things accomplished. In a remote world, this helps us continue to collaborate and do great work together even without the benefit of seeing each other in person every day.
