What Zoom learned from bringing employees back to the office

Even with the COVID-19 resurgence, most companies are initiating return-to-work policies. According to a recent study by workplace design and strategy firm Unispace, 72% of employers are mandating some form of in-person work. Ironically, one of those is Zoom, the company that became a foundational tool for remote work and learning during the pandemic.

“What some people don’t realize about us is that we have a lot of products and services beyond just Zoom meetings,” says Zoom’s chief people officer, Matthew Saxon. “We have a whole stack of things designed for the in-office experience. Zoom has been an in-office organization well before the pandemic started, and we will continue to do so.”

When it comes to designing work arrangements, Zoom is similar to other employers. Before the pandemic, the company worked predominantly in the office. In March 2020, Zoom employees swiftly shifted to remote working, experiencing the same growing pains as their customers.

“Our employees really banded together,” says Saxon. “It was a business moment when Zoom became the thing that kept children educated and companies going. That time really galvanized us as an organization. Obviously, we use our own services and solutions, and we’re thankful for it.”

Finding a New Way to Work

As Zoom helps its customers design their post-pandemic workplaces, Saxon said four work styles have emerged: entirely in-person, fully remote, flexible hybrid, and structured hybrid. “Flexible hybrid is where you come in on the days that suit you,” he explains. “Structured hybrid is when teams come together on the same days in order to make the most of the time that they have.”

Helping other companies navigate different ways of working prompted Zoom to rethink its own arrangement for 2023. At first, Zoom adopted a flexible hybrid model. After surveying employees, however, they discovered that collaboration, networking, team building, and learning opportunities made coming into the office effective.

“It’s not about doing the individual contributor work,” says Saxon. “We say, the office has to earn its commute.”

It was a light-bulb moment that seems obvious now, says Saxon. “It didn’t make sense if some employees were coming into the office in an unstructured way and they’re sitting on Zoom meetings to collaborate with employees who are working remotely,” he says. “We decided it’s better if we are coordinated. You get more cross-pollination of ideas and collaboration.”

To test the arrangement, the company started with the product and engineering teams. “That’s where we got some of these insights in terms of learning what made structured hybrid make sense,” says Saxon. “We quickly saw the benefits, and some of our other leaders were interested in doing that [with their departments], too.”

The company settled on a two-day-a-week in-office arrangement. Saxon says this schedule provides enough time to focus on tasks that hold extra value when done in person. The days vary by team.

Employee Feedback

Response from employees has been largely positive, says Saxon. “The first week that we were bringing people back, a lot of people were saying, ‘This is cool. I get to hang out with my teammates again,’” he says. “There was a real positive vibe around the office.”

The first day Zoom employees were back in the office in a structured way, engineers identified nearly 70 product enhancements, underscoring the power of in-person work, says Saxon. For example, one idea is a neighborhood seating concept. “Instead of having an open bunch of desks, we’ve been able to seat people within a team in a cluster that we call neighborhoods,” he says. “It further facilitates collaboration instead of being at different ends of a room or on different floors.”

Other employees, however, had gotten used to working fully remotely, so the shift was an unwelcome change for them. The New York Times recently reported on a “tense meeting” that Eric Yuan, Zoom’s chief executive, held with employees who expressed frustration over the time and money they’d spend commuting.

“We want to be accommodating to people that need extra time to sort out transportation, or caregiving, or pet-sitting needs,” says Saxon. “We’re making sure we’re being flexible with all those folks as they need it and working with them to come up with something that’s going to work for them.”

In addition, some of Zoom’s employees will remain fully remote. The return-to-work mandate only applies to employees who live within 50 miles of an office. Some people were hired or moved during the pandemic, and others were hired for their skill sets, regardless of location.

“We have a talent-first recruiting approach,” says Saxon. “We want to get the best talent for that particular role, and we’ve got the technology that can enable people to be successful no matter how they work.”

Finding the Right Arrangement

While choosing the best working arrangement for your company may seem intuitive, Saxon says experimenting and gathering insights are important steps. He suggests asking leaders, “What is the nature of the organization’s work? Is there a pragmatic element? Where are your people and where are your offices? And how much overlap is there between those two things? How do you do work, and how is that work best done?”

“Answering those questions can then lead your company to a different conclusion,” he says, adding that remote and in-person work is here to stay. “I think we will continue to evolve over the next couple of years. We continue to use these experiences to innovate how work gets done.”