Dropbox announces employees will permanently work from home

Dropbox describes itself as a company that allows customers to work from anywhere, and now its employees can too.

The tech company is the latest to go “virtual first,” meaning its employees will permanently work from home.

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But that doesn’t mean that Dropbox is leaving its offices entirely. Instead, some of them will become “Dropbox studios” for collaboration and meetings, and the company will also seek out flexible office space. Employees will not be allowed to use the spaces for solo work.

“We’re living through a challenging time. But we believe it brings an opportunity to redesign the way we work for the better,” Dropbox said in its announcement Tuesday.

The move follows a study by The Economist Intelligence Unit, commissioned by Dropbox, that found knowledge workers are more distracted at the office than at home, with face-to-face interruptions by colleagues being the most common distraction. Also, the company’s internal surveys found that nearly 90 percent of employees say they are able to be productive at home and don’t want to return to a five-day in-office workweek.

Dropbox said it will start by converting its offices in San Francisco, Seattle, Austin and Dublin, which have long-term leases and are in areas with a high concentration of employees.

Other tech companies have made similar work-from-home decisions during the pandemic. Microsoft announced just last week that employees can opt-out of ever returning to the office.

Twitter and Facebook separately announced work-from-home plans in May, and Zillow blessed employees’ working from home permanently in July.