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'We were made for this': How Slack became king of the remote-work world
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The quick rise
Slack makes it possible for tens of millions of employees to have online conversations, ask questions, share information, make decisions. The platform reproduces the culture of the open-plan office by combining smartphone text messaging with the ability to separate and chronicle streams of workplace communication.
In 2020, there was an increase in number of people working from home and universities canceled in-person classes. Monday, March 9, 2020, Slack’s worldwide connected users hit an all-time high.
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Slack became indispensable
Investors had been wary of Slack since it went public in June 2019 because of its slowing growth, lack of profitability, and competition from Microsoft's competing product called Teams.
But as business swerved to avoid contagion, people were flocking to Slack's product to cope with disaster. Slack became a critical service, like Wi-Fi or electricity.
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Work from home
Although Slack also runs on Slack, the company had a work-at-office culture. As the company closed its offices in March, the executive made a series of decisions to make its mission clearer: Slack would take care of its people first during this crisis. In turn, those employees would take care of their customers.
- They offered to reimburse each employee up to $500 for whatever equipment they needed to do their jobs at home.
- When the schools closed, they advised people to work when they could.
- They encouraged their employees to log out and take care of their kids and families.
- They offer to pay employees their full salaries.
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Made for this time
A lot of people are relying on Slack at this moment. They ensure that offices can keep on functioning.
"There's a feeling inside that the company was made for this crisis," says Slack's CTO, Cal Butterfield.
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Flattening the curve
It means that all the social distancing measures being adopted these days in many countries aren’t so much about preventing illness but rather slowing down the rate at which people get sick with...
Preventing system overload
Staying home during the pandemic helps prevent health systems from being overloaded.
Overloading hospitals can likely be averted with protective measures like closing schools, canceling mass gatherings, working from home, self-quarantine, self-isolation, avoiding crowds. All these keep the virus from spreading fast.
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Changes you may see
If and when you return to your office after the pandemic, you'll probably notice some changes.
- The doors of the building may open automatically, so you don't have to touch the handl...
Working from home
Before the pandemic, only 4 percent of the US workforce worked from home at least half the time. However, the trend of working from home had been gaining momentum for years.
It is estimated that within a couple of years, 30% of people will work from home multiple days per week.
Continued remote work
- Before the pandemic, a lot of company management and leaders were skeptical regarding remote work. But the skepticism will go away because companies recognize that remote work does work.
- The economic impact of the pandemic will likely force employers to cut costs. They may reduce their rent by letting workers work from home instead of layoffs.
- Employers had to spend money on new technology and equipment to work from home - a departure from the norm.
- Employees themselves are also spending more money to create better home offices.
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Remote-first Mindset
Accept that you have to put in place remote work systems, even if more than half of your employees ultimately revert to office-based work.
- If done right, a remote-first infrastructu...
Build a socially-connected culture
Intentionally design for the same interactions that would otherwise happen if people were in the office.
- Culture is what naturally happens when a group of people gets together for any period.
- A great culture happens with intentional design and influence. It's the reason you should make your company's mission, vision, values, operating principles, standards, and agreements visible.
- Culture is experienced through emotions, including how your employees feel about the company, you, other leaders, and peers. That feeling is developed through human interaction at the water cooler, kitchen, or hallway conversations.
Your leadership presence
Your people need to feel your presence as a leader as they will have fewer opportunities to see you face to face when they work remotely.
- Regularly show up in a variety of forms that can include weekly video meetings, periodic company-wide emails, or presence in public channels.
- Err on the side of more communication rather than less.