Spotify Will Let Employees Work From Anywhere They Do Their Best ‘Thinking And Creating’
As we are hopefully nearing the beginning of the end of the worst part of the pandemic, companies are firming up and sharing their future plans for their workers.
Spotify, the fast-growing audio streaming and media services provider, announced on its corporate blog Friday, “Today, Spotify is proud to introduce Work From Anywhere, a new way of collaborating that allows Spotifiers to work from wherever they do their best thinking and creating.” The company emphasized the importance of choice, writing, “We are giving employees the opportunity to elect a Work Mode—whether they’d prefer to work mostly at home or in the office—as well as their geographic location.”
Spotify said in the blog post, “Effectiveness can’t be measured by the number of hours people spend in an office. Instead, giving people the freedom to choose where they work will boost effectiveness. Giving our people more flexibility will support a better work-life balance and also help tap into new talent pools while keeping our existing band members.”
The podcast and music streaming company said it is reevaluating its office spaces around the world for “increased sustainability, flexibility and well-being.” The goal is to offer an office experience in which “employees have a place where they can focus, collaborate and create—whether that’s at a desk, in a conference room or in cafe spaces.”
Starting this summer, the company will introduce “My Work Mode,” which offers flexible choices. This includes the following options:
Employees will be able to work full time from home, the office or a combination of both options. The combination of at-home and in-office work will be decided between the employee and the person’s manager.
Spotify employees will have also be afforded the opportunity to select whichever country or city they’d prefer to work from. If an employee decides to move to a location far from a corporate office, the company could have an office co-working space if they’d like to work in an office setting.
Earlier this week, Salesforce, a leading cloud-based and software-as-a-service company, said the “9-to-5 workday is dead.” Based upon employee feedback, Salesforce said it will enact the following policies and offer employees “flexibility in how, when and where they work with three ways of working”:
Flex: When it’s safe to return to the office, employees around the globe will work flex. This means they’ll be in the office one to three days per week for team collaboration, customer meetings and presentations.
Fully Remote: For employees who don’t live near an office or have roles that don’t require an office, they will work remotely full time.
Office-based: The smallest population of the workforce will work from an office location four to five days per week if they’re in roles that require it.
Tech giants Facebook, Google and Amazon have recently invested heavily in purchasing, building or leasing large amounts of real estate. The locations offer attractive amenities to make it inviting for people to return to an office setting. They also allow spaces for social distancing and collaboration with small groups of people. The tech giants, according to their actions, are anticipating that the future will be a hybrid of working from home and going into a safe office environment.