Dropbox has become the latest company to embrace a new normal, announcing it has become a “virtual first” company.
Since the pandemic forced organizations to adopt remote workflows, many companies were surprised to discover how well employees adapted to changing circumstances. As a result, numerous companies have announced plans to make remote work a permanent part of the corporate routine.
Dropbox is the latest to announce permanent changes as a result of the pandemic:
Starting today, Dropbox is becoming a Virtual First company. Remote work (outside an office) will be the primary experience for all employees and the day-to-day default for individual work.
As part of this strategy, Dropbox is also reevaluating standard workdays:
Next, we’re embracing what we call “non-linear workdays.” We’re setting core collaboration hours with overlap between time zones, and encouraging employees to design their own schedules beyond that. As our workforce grows more distributed, this will help balance collaboration with needs for individual focus. We want to prioritize impact and results instead of hours worked.
Dropbox acknowledges there are challenges to a virtual first policy, and is working to address them with the release of Virtual First Toolkit, which it has open-sourced for other companies to make use of.