How the Future Works

Why Flexible Work Works

“The workplace will now be wherever work happens, and the workweek will be whenever work happens best for each person.”¹ That was how Dropbox CEO, Drew Houston, described the company's flexible work strategy, announced in October 2020, which was a clear break from how they'd worked in the past. Dropbox had largely been an office-centric culture, and they'd invested a lot in creating what Chief People Officer, Melanie Collins, describes as “the most delightful work environment we possibly could.” Their office spaces, which are located around the globe from San Francisco to Sydney, Australia, included things like state-of-the-art gyms and world-renowned cafeterias featuring their own signature roasted coffee blend. Office space was such a big part of their culture that pre-pandemic only three percent of its people didn't work out of one.  When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and those offices had to close, the vast majority of Dropbox employees were displaced.

Much like what happened at Slack, as the pandemic forced them to pivot, Dropbox leaders were surprised to find that productivity and performance didn't really miss a beat. That caused them to rethink what they'd been doing and accelerated their conversation around the merits and possibilities of flexible work. The pandemic forced more flexibility on companies, of course, but the question for Dropbox quickly became: How could it work over the long-term? What would a flexible work strategy look like if it ...