Airbnb Employees Can Work From Anywhere

In-office meetings will happen less frequently and will focus on collaboration and relationship building

Airbnb is embracing a unique twist on a hybrid approach as tech firms seek to figure out the best method of bringing employees together without forcing them into an office.

The CEO of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, has made a significant shift in the way 6,000 employees at his firm work, and it's nothing like the prior two years. Some businesses are banking on attractive perks to get people back into the office at least a few days a week, while others don't mind if you ever return. It looks as though Airbnb has figured out the ideal of both worlds.

“The office as we know it is over,” Brian Chesky said in an interview with The Washington Post. “It is an anachronistic form factor from a pre-digital age.”

Airbnb's CEO, Brian Chesky, believes that employee gatherings in places will still exist, but in a different form. Instead of employees returning to the workplace for a few days each week, the organization will hold off-sites and social gatherings once every three months to form trust and connection and conduct vital collaborative tasks.

According to Chesky, more individuals will relocate to different cities, states, or countries due to the growth in digital nomads. Airbnb, which posted a first-quarter net loss of $19 million on a 70 percent increase in quarterly revenue to $1.51 billion, has benefited from the rise in tourism.

To assist a greater number of individuals traveling to work in other nations, Airbnb is collaborating with approximately 20 countries to remove some of the red tape involved with acquiring a temporary employment visa. They can also work in 170 different locations for up to 90 days at a time, but Airbnb won’t allow permanent international moves, at least for right now.

Hybrid work — with no strings attached — is the future

Last month, Airbnb announced new policies that allow workers to live and work from anywhere in their country without a pay cut.

According to Chesky, the new work policy will be successful in part because they implemented it less than two weeks ago, and since then, more than 1 million people have visited their careers and jobs website.

“Ultimately, I don’t believe that CEOs can dictate how people work,” Chesky explained. “The market will. The employees will. Flexibility will be the most important benefit after compensation.”

Increased diversity is one of the advantages of flexibility. If a firm only hires people in San Francisco, for example, it is restricted to the diversity of those who can afford to live there. Companies may establish offices and other locations, but true diversity comes from a varied portfolio of communities.

Some workers are upset that technology companies like Google, Twitter, and Meta might decrease salaries for employees who relocate to areas with a lower cost of living. Some firms limit employee salary raises to those relocating to locations with a lower cost of living. But it's worth noting that remote work is not available to all employees; certain teams must get permission from their managers like at Amazon, or each team has different rules like at Apple. Only a few businesses allow staff to work from home.

Airbnb will assist to popularize and speed up an inevitable development. Screens will get better, the internet will get faster, and digital experiences will improve. According to Chesky, businesses should do this because it is unavoidable and because employees want it.

It is not simple to put together a hybrid or remote work system. Many enterprises are finding it challenging to balance embracing the times and making staff happy with the desire to bring everyone together.

“Technology will play a key role in developing an efficient and effective system of getting work done in a compliant and safe manner,” noted Anupum Singhal, SVP of Strategic Partnerships at Topia.

At Worldwide ERC®’s Spring Virtual Conference Vertical on Technology, Singhal went on to say that “when a company decides to allow an employee to work remotely or in a hybrid capacity, it is critically important that technology accelerates the coordination of all the vendors involved (payroll, talent mobility, travel, expense management, immigration, tax) to ensure that the decision is in the best interests of the employee and the company from a safety and compliance standpoint.”

Flexible work culture will aid in recruiting talent

Airbnb and Chesky are already considering the future of compensation in remote work. Chesky predicts that location-based pay will soon be seen as a relic of the past. In a world of flexibility, where employees don't have to be in the office five days per week, Chesky argues that compensation should be based on the job rather than location.

The current talent wars influenced Airbnb’s new work policy. Even after the creation of the Internet, recruiting has always been a cat-and-mouse game between companies for talent. Employers will now use work cultures with the greatest flexibility instead of trying to win over clients with the best facilities.

The most significant challenges that businesses will confront in the next era of work have been considered by Chesky and his crew. If a firm decides to have its employees work three days a week or five days a week, it will have difficulty retaining staff, maintaining morale, and recruiting new people. 

Companies that embrace flexibility will have to answer a different question: How do you make sure people can still build meaningful relationships at work? Airbnb doesn't think the answer is to work three days a week in the office. Instead, they feel these should be immersive and intentional get-togethers.

The key to enabling people to work from home is to make sure it isn't a burden for everyone. According to Coinbase, workers shouldn't be chastised for deciding to work from home, whether through pay cuts or being cut off from social circles. Airbnb's idea is a step toward remote-ish: the potential to reside away from an office and enjoy brief in-person interactions. It may very well be the future's true hybrid work model.