NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� Many companies arrangements that began during the coronavirus pandemic despite employees who grew accustomed to working from home.
Dropbox has no plans to to offices. After adopting a 鈥渧irtual-first鈥� staffing model in 2020, the San Francisco technology company met all of its financial goals and remains committed to making the norm for the vast majority of its employees, according to Chief People Officer Melanie Rosenwasser.
鈥淭he pandemic tested our assumption that we have to be in person in order to be productive,鈥� she said.
Allowing employees to helps Dropbox retain talent, said Rosenwasser, who leads the cloud storage provider’s human resources teams. Over time, the company refined scheduling practices, meeting protocols and employee well-being programs to better meet the needs of its 鈥渄istributed鈥� workforce, she said.
鈥淚t鈥檚 especially important to us to maintain this posture as so many other companies across many, many industries are mandating return to office,” Rosenwasser said.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Rosenwasser reflected on the ways Dropbox thrives with and creates in-person events to build community. Her responses were edited for brevity and clarity.
AP: Why did Dropbox choose a virtual-first model?
ROSENWASSER: We are explicitly not hybrid. We think this is the worst of all worlds, where employees suffer through long commutes only to sit on Zoom because most of our colleagues are distributed. We really believed in this creation of an even playing field. The rules of that are, largely, individual work is done remotely by everyone, but we still come together in person at least quarterly for strategy setting, connection, team building and bonding.
The model is fundamentally built on this notion that flexibility and agency are these new currencies of modern work. We see benefits in recruiting, engagement, employee retention and cost savings.
AP: How does it work?
ROSENWASSER: We put a lot of intention behind how we would bring this to life. We are asynchronous by default, which means we do a lot of our communication and even decision-making in writing. We have a structure called core collaboration hours. These are four-hour blocks for that overlap by time zone. The rest of the time is yours for deep work, answering emails, continuing individual work on projects.
We鈥檙e also really obsessed with meeting hygiene. When we do come together and meet, we want to be really intentional on the rules of engagement. We focus on something that we call the three D’s: discuss, debate or decide. If none of those things are on the table, then a meeting is not required.
AP: Outside core collaboration hours, can people set their own schedules?
ROSENWASSER: The core collaboration hours are great because everyone knows that this is when you鈥檙e meeting with colleagues. Outside of that, you according to your preferences. Some people log off earlier in the afternoon because they have things they need to do with their children, but they log on later on at night because that is the way that they want to work. We allow for that, and every team contracts on these things so everyone knows what each other鈥檚 working schedule is and accommodates.
AP: What challenges do you face with the virtual-first model?
ROSENWASSER: The first is around burnout and the importance of setting boundaries. When you鈥檙e working from home, your personal and professional life blur, and that鈥檚 why we wanted to intentionally put into place non-linear workdays which are very much based on personal preferences.
When you鈥檙e working remotely, you鈥檙e very sedentary. We piloted a program called “Meet & Move.” We took a set of employees, and all of the meetings they took for the week were on the phone and they were moving. They could take a walk outside or move throughout their house, but they were not sitting in front of a camera.
We have this companywide meeting-effectiveness initiative. It鈥檚 not actually the number of meetings that鈥檚 the problem. It鈥檚 the fragmentation of these meetings. For example, you have a couple of meetings in the morning, then you鈥檝e got a 15-minute break, then you’ve got another hour-and-a-half, and you鈥檝e got a 30-minute break. When this happens, you can鈥檛 really do anything meaningful in those 15- or 30-minute breaks between meetings.
On the HR team, we eliminated all legacy meetings that no longer served us. We built our meetings where we would batch them. Mondays and Wednesdays are for one-on-ones, Tuesdays are for team meetings, Fridays are for interviews. We all tried to adhere to the same schedule. We had more efficiently restructured meetings, more focused time. Now we鈥檙e thinking about rolling this out more broadly to the company.
AP: How do you build community?
ROSENWASSER: There鈥檚 a relationship tax when you work remotely. Because you鈥檙e not in person every day, you don鈥檛 have these natural moments of connection. Quarterly off-sites are one of the best ways to build teamwork and strengthen sense of belonging. We have an off-site team that is dedicated to helping leaders put together an agenda, guest speakers, location and hotels.
We had to be really intentional about onboarding because it takes place remotely. Everyone gets an onboarding buddy, which is somebody likely on their team. They show them the ropes, meet with them every day, and eventually it turns into weekly meetings. They also get a mentor, and this could be someone that sits within their team or outside of their team.
People who live in and around the same city come together every week, every other week, for various events. It could be a volunteer event. When we have executives in town in certain cities, we鈥檒l do fireside chats with them and invite all the folks (who work in that area) to come. Everything is basically subsidized, and they鈥檙e not mandatory.
AP: What did Dropbox leaders need to unlearn to make this work?
ROSENWASSER: There is a perception that when you鈥檙e in the office and you can actually physically see the people on your team, you can just assume they鈥檙e doing what they鈥檙e supposed to be doing. But I think we all know from working in offices that鈥檚 not necessarily true. There are tons of distractions. You鈥檝e got gyms and on-site yoga and all kinds of things that are distracting, let alone the number of people that can walk by your desk to start a conversation when you鈥檙e midthought.
Today, every single person at Dropbox can see what every team鈥檚 responsible for, every item on the roadmap, when things are going to be done, how those things are going to be done. We鈥檙e extremely transparent about our goals and what teams are doing.
We don鈥檛 have to micromanage their presence because we set these goals and either they hit them or they don鈥檛 hit them, so this has become a really important aspect of our operating model, is assertive goal-setting and clarity.
All of our meetings start with a written document. People will, for the first five or 10 minutes of the meeting, read it and then they come on camera, and then we discuss it. It’s been really great for clarity of thought because clear writing is effectively clear thinking, so it forces you to put your thoughts and your proposal into a format that can be digested.
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