The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted companies worldwide to bring more flexibility to their work culture. Some have permanently shifted the office to the digital space allowing employees to work from home, while others have adopted the hybrid work model.Working from home has perks, as employees spend more time with their families.It also involves online meetings, video calls, and several phone calls throughout the day, but when at the office, according to Stewart Butterfield, CEO of Canada-based software company Slack, employees should take the opportunity to do tasks which they can't perform at home rather than plugging in their headphones. Highlighting the work scenario before the pandemic struck, the CEO told BBC, "The 80 per cent of the floor space that we dedicated to kind of factory-farm, battery-chicken housing for people to use their desks all by themselves and listen to their headphones, and not talk to anyone else... was a bit of a waste."Mr Butterfield emphasised the need to collaborate and build relationships while working from the office. He said that renovations are being carried out at his company to convert the workplace into a social club.He acknowledged that many choose to come to the office and work for several reasons and highlighted that freshers prefer to interact with their peers at the workplace.Mr Butterfield added that he couldn't imagine someone starting their career and losing the opportunity to meet others by working from home.Further, speaking about office meetings, the CEO underlined an idea introduced by Jeff Bezos at Amazon where employees are made to read a six-page memo as a briefing note before the meeting starts which, according to him, eliminates the need to stare at PowerPoint presentations.Mr Butterfield claimed that around 20 to 30 per cent of the meetings that take place "don't actually have to be meetings".He added that such meetings could be effectively fulfilled through written communications.
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