Remote work is here to stay, so long as it gets the job done. That’s the general consensus across the tech industry, as company leaders look ahead to a new year certain to depend on the same logistical flexibility and business innovation that defined 2021.
As tech prepares to turn the page, gone are the pandemic’s turbulent early days, in which the urgent and ever-evolving need to protect employees’ health and safety forced companies to get creative about taking in-person workplaces virtual — and demanded they do so as quickly as possible. Rising to that challenge, companies made efficiency a focus in 2021, streamlining remote approaches and discovering myriad benefits along the way, in terms of both workplace productivity and employee satisfaction.
Just ask Becca Axvig, head of people at Mux. Though headquartered in San Francisco, the developer-focused streaming video platform has expanded globally throughout the past year, requiring outside-the-box solutions to ensure a workforce scattered across continents can remain cohesive on a daily basis.
“Becoming more distributed was inevitable, but the pandemic accelerated our efforts to make a distributed team more successful,” Axvig says. “Before the pandemic, we had a handful of employees working outside of our offices in San Francisco and London. Now, we’re proudly a remote-equal team, with over half the team working from home.”
Mux’s employees thrive in virtual settings but value equally the community of an open office. Sensing this, the company is committed to providing both for the foreseeable future. As Axvig prepares for 2022, she explains why Mux’s hybrid model offers employees “the best of both worlds.”
Mux is building better videos. Headquartered in San Francisco but based all around the world, this fast-growing software company offers best-in-class video infrastructure in one API request.
2021 forced us all to reimagine how and where we work. What is one work trend from this past year that will continue to gain momentum in 2022?
We’ve taken the pulse of what our team members value about working from home, as well as what they miss about being in person. With pandemic-related interruptions to childcare, school, and other life responsibilities, Muxers enjoy the flexibility of work-from-home when life and logistics require it. But for the majority of the team, it’s equally important to have access to an office for connection and collaborative work — whether that office is down the street or a plane ride away. In fact, over two-thirds of our team craved safe, in-person events whenever possible.
A remote-equal, hybrid model really gives us the best of both worlds. For team members within commuting distance, we recommend but don’t require two in-office days, with catered lunch provided, and recommend one work-from-home day on which we schedule all company meetings to be dial-in, rather than go through the suboptimal experience of getting a huge group together in person while others join virtually. Rounding out the week, we offer two flex days on which folks can choose where they work. For remote team members, we extend a lunch stipend, a home office stipend, and a generous travel policy to get them to one of our offices quarterly, provided they want to travel in.
How has your company adapted over time to the workplace shifts brought on by the pandemic? What permanent impact has that had on the way your team works?
We revamped our entire onboarding experience to suit work-from-home realities, including a complete home office set up, onboarding treats and swag, virtual onboarding sessions throughout the first 30 days, a buddy system to help each new hire acclimate, and Zoom meet-and-greets for each new hire to connect with other team members. Watercooler interactions aren’t as frequent in a work-from-home world, so we’re making sure they still happen.
Our remote-equal approach has had an amazing impact thus far. We’re seeing better company-wide documentation, thanks to our note-taking and project management software Notion. Since the pandemic leveled the playing field, we’ve all experienced more empathy toward the remote work experience and are planning permanent moves towards being a more distributed team long-term.
As you head into the new year, what do you foresee as the future of work, and how are you making that a reality within your company?
The future of work is flexible and distributed. We’re currently hiring in the U.S. and the U.K. while giving those folks options in terms of where they want to work. Over time, we’ll likely expand our distributed team into more geographies, including additional locations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as well as the Asia-Pacific region.
Being remote-friendly doesn’t mean giving up on in-person investments entirely. Our London and San Francisco office-based employees have embraced our hybrid model, and it’s been amazing to feel the energy when we’re there together. We also love hosting our remote employees for on-sites, and we are continually creating amazing new team experiences that work for both virtual and in-person employees.
Whether your employees work from the office, from home, or some combination of the two, fostering team connection via virtual events and on Slack is key. At Mux, our team has enjoyed virtual book clubs, game nights, and Living Mux Values sessions with guest speakers that are always full of inspiring discussion. On Slack, we have office- and location-specific channels, but also a watercooler channel with fun daily prompts from the Donut integration, which keep us connected even if we aren’t gathering at the Bevi machine in our San Francisco office kitchen.
