GitLab Remote Work, 9 Jul 2020

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From YouTube: GitLab and Shopify on the Future of Remote Work | Fellow.app

Description

The world is changing and companies like Shopify are changing with it. For Shopify, Digital by Default is about building new ways of connecting, collaborating, and building relationships. It’s also about making the transition to remote-first.

GitLab, on the other hand, is the world’s largest all-remote company, with over 1,300 team members in 65+ countries and years of experience in the remote world.

GitLab believes that remote work enables a more diverse and inclusive workforce, greater efficiency in workflows, and broader global coverage in servicing clients.

We interviewed Darren Murph, Head of Remote at GitLab, and Mark Bergen, Head of Revenue at Shopify Plus, on both companies' views, best practices, and policies on remote work.

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A

Hello, everyone and welcome to this live ama with shopify,, gitlab and.

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Fellow!, I'm super excited that you're joining us today. Thank you to everyone.

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Here and a special thank you to mark and darren for being here today and.

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Offering their time to answer questions from our community about remote work and.

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Remote leadership., thank you so much for being here today. We're very excited.

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For this conversation., why don't we go ahead and start with some introductions?.

A

I know darren we're very interested to learn about your guinness world.

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Record so maybe you can tell us a little bit about yourself and your role as.

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Gitlab's head of remote, as well as your guinness world record please. yes, thanks.

B

For the introduction!, thanks all for tuning in, I appreciate you being.

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Gracious with your time. so,, as manuela said, I'm darren and I'm the head of remote.

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At gitlab., I've worked across the spectrum of remote for over 15 years now,.

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And during a pocket of that, I actually worked remotely as the managing editor.

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Of a tech publication called engadget where I earned a guinness world record.

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As the world's most prolific professional blogger, and so that goes to.

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Show that remote work is not only possible, but it actually helped enable.

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Me to earn a guinness world record while I actually went to all 50 us states and.

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I think over 30 or 35 countries. so,. I wrote a book about that. It's called.

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Living the remote dream, if you want to dive in further- and that has taken me.

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All the way to today at gitlab. we are the world's largest all-remote company.

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We have over 1,300 employees in over 65 countries with no company-owned offices.

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And there's a big difference between all remote and other forms of remote. I've.

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Learned a lot over the years and hope to share that with that crowd, today.

A

Thank you.. I'm really curious to ask you more about that difference between all.

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Remote and other types of remote, so I'm going to make sure to ask about that later.

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On but before that, I would love to introduce you to our second panelist.

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Mark is the head of revenue at shopify plus. we're super honored to have.

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You here today mark because I know you have a lot of leadership experience and.

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You recently transitioned to remote work, so I know we're going to learn a lot.

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About your experience. so,, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself.

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And your role as shopify plus' head revenue? sure, thank you.. It's good to be.

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Here this afternoon. so, mark bergen,, I've been with shopify plus about four and a.

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Half years now and my role is head of revenue. so,, I have the sales and the.

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Partnership functions which report in and which have a global dimension to it. So.

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Teams in australia in north america and europe, and I, unlike daren, have been very.

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Much an office bound, office, centered worker for about twenty years of my.

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Career and so shopify moving into what we refer to as digital by.

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Default is very new for me and we're learning a lot and I'll explain a little.

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Bit of shopify's background and though it's not new for shopify,, it's new for a lot.

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Of us and it's new for me and it's new for how to operate sales teams and.

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Revenue teams in a remote environment. I've been in technology most of my career.

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And primarily, and kind of a canadian market space working with various.

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Startups and technology businesses., that's awesome and super interesting and.

A

You know you mentioned the reason why I think this ama is so interesting. Is.

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Because gitlab has historically been an all remote company right and on the.

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Other hand shopify just transitioned to remote work, so I think we're going to get two.

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Very interesting and different perspectives: today. so,, before we begin, I.

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Also wanted to let our audience know that erin blaskie,, who is our director.

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Of marketing at fellow will be moderating the q&a section. So if you.

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Have any questions for mark or darren, please feel free to type them in the q&a.

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Box and we'll be answering them at the last part of a call. so,. Are we ready for.

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Some questions?, let's begin. so,, I wanted to start with the basics.. I know both.

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Gitlab and shopify have very specific terms to describe their remote.

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Cultures so darren, you mentioned that gitlab uses the term all remote and.

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Mark you mentioned the term digital by default.. Can you both explain.

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A little bit about what these terms mean and why your companies.

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Chose this very specific terminology to describe the remote culture? yes,.

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Absolutely. you'll find that pretty much anything I.

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Say today is hopefully documented in the gitlab handbook,. We are a very transparent.

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Company and we open-source all of our knowledge- and that includes terminology.

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So,, if you actually, google gitlab remote terminology, you'll find an entire.

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Page that I wrote on this very topic., all remote is very specific. We have no.

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Company-Owned offices, which means that we have one playing field. so,, everyone that joins the company, is on the same playing.

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Field. remote first, there's generally some sort of physical presence, even if.

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It's one company headquarters or an employee experience center.. There is some.

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Place that the company owns where some amount of people can go and work. in.

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That instance, you're tasked with operating remote first, you assume that.

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Everyone will be remote because you don't know if anyone on any given day.

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Will be in the office, but you do have to think about that, that there will be some.

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People that are in a different environment. both are amazing. There's.

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Just some subtle differences on the the ownership and the physical location.

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Piece. darren, has gitlab always been an all remote company?. We have so the.

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First, three employees were in three different countries, and so they were.

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Remote by default., the founding team actually came to california for y.

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Combinator and coming out of that they did get an office briefly. It lasted.

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About three days before people stopped showing up, they didn't want to deal with.

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The commute, work kept getting done, and they realized very early on that money.

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Was much better spent on people tools and technology than an office building.

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That they didn't own and so from the very beginning we were all remote.

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On the other hand, we have shopify, mark,. Can you tell us a little bit more about what.

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Digital by default, means? yes,. For some backdrop, shopify is a global.

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Business with over 5,000 employees and from the very early days we've had a.

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Support infrastructure of what we refer to as our gurus, who support our.

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Merchants around the world.. That organization is an enormous organization.

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So 30-40 % of our employees, about 2,000 people, have always been remote.

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And they operate remote. so, for many of us who have been office-centric,, it's.

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Now us learning how to operate like them. we've operated as a very dynamic.

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Company, where we have you know, 2,000 employees who have always worked.

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Remote,, that is their world. We've had 3,000-4,000 employees who have been.

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Office, centric and yet bound by this really common culture.

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No matter what the work environment has been and on what your.

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Experience is. for us as covid hit,, our ceo tobi.

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Basically, his view has been: the future has just been pulled forward by five.

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Or ten years., we see that in our business in e-commerce, certainly, but also just the.

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Belief of office centricity that office centricity is this idea that we all need.

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To congregate in physical space,, we need to live close to a physical space and.

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That becomes the common currency around which work gets done. Is.

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Just gone and it's dead and it will be and so he's making the bet and basically.

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Calling and saying, I don't believe it's going to happen anymore and in fact I believe,, given what we've seen out of our support organization,. We can build an.

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Organization which probably fits more with what darren described as digital first.,.

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So, we do have some shopify, what we're calling, facilities as we think about what.

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We're going to do with them, I mean it's new for us. There may be some roles that.

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At times we feel need to congregate. We also have people who signed into shopify.

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With the expectation of physical space, and so we need to be sensitive.

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To does everybody have actually the safe space --? Is it psychologically safe,.

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Physically safe --, so there's considerations like that. We're working through as we go, but our intent is the vast majority of people in the vast.

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Majority of work will be removed, and that is our assumption. Moving forward.

C

I assume that, as you, transition to remote work, you've had to adopt many.

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Practices right and many new processes, so I want to ask you a little bit more.

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About that and maybe starting with there and there- and you talked about the.

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Importance of documentation right, you said. Hopefully this is documented.

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Already everything I'm saying, because I know the accumulation has been at the.

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Core of need lapse, culture from the very beginning- and I know you have a very you.

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Call you call this hand a handbook first approach right. You have like a very.

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Defined term for this, so I wanted to ask you about that, like what are some of the.

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Processes that you implemented from the very beginning- and you would recommend.

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Any other company who is transitioning to remote work to implement yeah. So if.

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You, google get lab handbook. First, you'll see a guide on what this means and it's.

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Open source companies can literally copy it word-for-word and implement it.

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Documentation is a dangerous term because if you just allow people to.

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Document that means something different to everyone, so your finance team may be.

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Documenting in one place and your hr team in another place, and then you get.

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Communication silos, we say handbook first to remind people that we have a.

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Single source of truth, which is the company handbook, we actually use, get lab.

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The product to build that handbook and iterate on that there's hundreds of.

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Improvements on that every single day and we use the version control feature.

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Of that, so that anyone can make a proposal even outside of get lab, we have.

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A lot of the broader community that will make suggestions for improving our.

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Handbook- and we do this because, as a remote team, you can't be sure that.

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Anyone is available or online at any given time.

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It helps reinforce our bias for asynchronous, which we fundamentally.

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Believe is a more inclusive way to work. We try to reduce the reliance on.

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Synchronicity to get work done, and that means we have to document things as we.

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Go so that other people around the company will have access to the most.

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Up-To-Date information and it's really key in onboarding- that we train people.

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To look first in the handbook and to adopt this practice of self service and.

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Self learning, which is very counterintuitive if you're used to.

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Tapping someone on the shoulder to fill in any knowledge gaps that you have and.

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It actually can feel kind of isolating and jarring initially and people very.

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Much opt into this culture, we're very upfront about what it's gonna be like.

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And you're gonna have to write a lot when you get here, but you learn that.

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This creates massive efficiencies, the more that's written down, the less you.

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Have to rianne, sir, we have this concept called answer with a link, and so just as.

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You're asking me these questions. My goal is to be able to answer with a link for.

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Anything that I'm saying, I hope that there's a link that will add additional context, and so we get asked a question and get lab and the problem actually.

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Hasn't been solved and hasn't been documented, we take the approach of.

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Finding the answer finding the subject matter expert then documenting it.

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Putting it in the handbook so that if anyone has this question henceforth.

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They'll be able to find it in the handbook, that's so very interesting. It's.

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A great approach for anyone new joining the company right they have about one.

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Single source of truth for everything related to the company, so it's super.

A

Cool mark has your team always documented all.

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Their processes, or is this something you started doing now- that you're working remotely we probably fall in the middle shopify, is a fairly documentation. Heavy.

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Company, although documentation can take many forms, and so certainly we have an.

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Internal repository we refer to as the vault. We have lots of information.

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There's lots of information being documented right now and digital by default. What I mean you know we're still sorting out a lot of things, there's a lot of questions that we've taken on as we have gone through this, and so we are being transparent about the way we think about.

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It with our people we're trying to be very transparent in our decisions and.

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Trying to create you know, as darren said kind of one single source of truth, that.

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People can go to to understand. I think what I'm finding is kind of a revenue.

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Leader within the businesses, which is a new one, is well a lot of our major.

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Decisions get documented in our thinking and planning in those pieces. There's a.

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Lot of day-to-day pieces that, when you're in a physical location, you get.

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Super used to just you know the over the monitor, conversation or grabbing someone.

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In the hallway, the lunch line, you even slap to a degree where quick decisions.

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Are made they disappear depending on how you set slack up in ninety days, or you.

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Know 180 days, and so there is, I think, some learnings that we're starting to.

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Recognize that some of the things we've taken for granted so now is being.

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Institutionalized knowledge or if we make a decision, everybody heard and.

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Everybody's aware, they're not anymore, it might be between two people on slack or.

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Two people over hang out or a zoom blank, and it's now time to actually get more.

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Serious about how we document so we're doing that, certainly with our projects.

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And how we think about major initiatives we have underway, but it is I'm starting.

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To realize- and I won't say I'm good at it yet- but I'm starting to realize the importance of it for a lot of decisions- I've taken for granted up until now,.

C

That's interesting and I was gonna, ask there and like there and you have a lot.

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Of experience with this, you have any tape service practices for teams that.

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Just like mark's team are just getting started, or you know implementing this.

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Documentation processes yeah, so the challenges that were verbalized there.

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Are very real and we do a couple of things to try to address those at get.

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Lab we have transparency as one of our core values and we actually have a key.

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Performance indicator where we quarter-over-quarter try to make sure.

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That the percentage of slack messages sent as private or direct messages.

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Actually goes down and the ratio of the public messages sent go up and that.

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Helps more decisions be made in public so that they're broadcast to the.

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Broadest amount of people, which goes along with our mission of everyone, can.

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Contribute we want as many eyes on things as possible so that if people.

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Even outside the organ is have feedback or have an idea or they've.

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Heard something from one of their other client consultations, they're able to.

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Pour in now, this only works because a few of our other sub values, like no ego.

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And blameless problem-solving short toes, I love short toes. It means everyone to.

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Get laugh at short toes, so it's impossible to step on anyone's.

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Proverbial toes, you have to have some of these cultural underpinnings in place to.

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Empower people to be that transparent and show their work, even if it's in.

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Draft and we believe that everything is under construction and we have no issues.

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At all shipping, something that is just a minimum viable product, just a better.

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Iteration, you really have to adopt all of these things for this to feel really.

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Succinct otherwise to mark's point you're kind of you're missing out on.

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Some of those hallways conversations where decisions get done very quickly.

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But in private and so in a remote setting, you just have to get a lot more.

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Comfortable with decisions being made in public and and operating with, no ego.

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Yeah sorry mark, please continue. I was gonna, say actually to come tonight that.

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I think really hit on darren mentioned kind of the concept of trust. We talked a ton about trust and we use this concept of a trust. Battery, eternal and shopify.

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And one of the things that we've talked about internally a little bit and kind.

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Of recognize that I'm really starting to notice now in a remote environment is if.

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You want to be transparent, it means also you're going to see some of the messy.

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Stuff along the way, it's not but enough, we don't have all the answers, we're learning as we go we're making decisions as we go, but here's how we're thinking about it and here's the process we're going through and we expect a fairly.

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High degree of trust with one another that you'll accept that you know you're.

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Seeing how the sausage is made, it's not done yet and that's been really.

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Important for us- and I think, one of the things that we continue to focus a lot.

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As on as a company- and I would encourage others who are thinking about or.

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Considering what this world looks like, it's really strongly underpinning trust.

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As darren mentioned, the other thing actually know I realize this is not.

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Intended to be about fellow, but actually, we've adopted fellow quite heavily.

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Eternally and it's a fantastic tool for us for this rapid documentation in one.

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Place around meetings were having group meetings forwarding or having kind of.

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Common agenda items or kind of continuing to roll forward for meetings, and so we've started to adopt some tools like that.

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Be really helpful and capturing documentation in one place and something.

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You can always refer back to in written format. That's awesome thanks for giving.

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Us the shout out, I was actually gonna. Ask you about tools.

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Because I know, as more teams go remote they're, you know adopting new.

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Productivity tools and tools to help them stay, communicated and connected are.

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There any other tools. I know you mentioned slack. You mentioned a blab, you.

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Mentioned fellow, are there any other tools that have helped you stay productive and connected while working remotely both of you, you want to take.

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Down mark, I actually am interested in your answer because we're still learning.

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It I'd say that you know so number one we're still learning it. We've always.

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Been with you know, a large portion of our business, which is remote to begin.

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With we've always been very comfortable and really adopted, use of the video.

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Conferencing technologies, as I mentioned, we do a lot of documentation internally.

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With product management, you know, systems set up in frameworks that are used.

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Holistically across the business to create a high level of transparency, we're still learning, though, and I think what's been interesting in darren. I've.

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Talked a little bit about this briefly: was you know the worlds? The tools today.

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Are not built for moat work. The tools today are built for office workers.

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Sitting behind a desk working with other people, and so one of the comments that.

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Toby made our ceo when we were first heading into this, and he was kind of.

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Talking about digital by default and just calling out the direction we were going to go was you know we are seeing the worst version. We can possibly see.

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Right now and the tools are only to get better from this point forward, so we are.

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You know always playing with tools and learning and practicing with different calendar management and documentation and similar, but I also feel right now.

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That the tool set out there was never really designed for this or the tools.

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That were designed for this environment or preached them yeah at get lab. We use.

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Get lab the product for all of our collaboration across the entire company.

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Well, beyond engineering, our entire company uses it to collaborate.

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Asynchronously on tools and minimizing your tool stack and trying to focus work.

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Communication into a single place is really big for remote teams and to.

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Mark's point most companies that have been thrust in.

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Remoter and what I call phase 1, a remote adaptation, which is essentially.

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Skeuomorphism you're attempting to press copy on the office environment and paste.

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It into a virtual environment. So if you had a certain recurring meeting that.

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Happened in a boardroom, you still have that meeting, but instead of it happening.

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In a boardroom it happens in zoom, you don't change who attends you? Don't.

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Change the time you don't change your meeting hygiene, you just try to do it.

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Exactly the same way, and I get that for business continuity, that makes sense, but.

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You'll really start unlocking the power of remote. When you start questioning is.

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This meeting really necessary is there a tool that actually could replace this.

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Meeting and get to the outcome, without interrupting the day of, however, many.

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People are in this meeting and forget lab. We have a pretty minimal tool, stack.

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We do all of our work and get lab. We do use zoom for video communications. We use.

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G suite for a temporal documentation and we use slack, but we mostly use slack for.

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Informal communication: we expire all of our messages after 90 days to force.

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People to just use it informally, because you don't want to do work in a place.

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Where you'll have no history or remembrance of it in 90 days, and so.

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Instead, we fill it with topical channels, things like hiking and travel and.

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Parenting where people can just be humans and converse together, sort of the.

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Virtual lobby that you miss out on in an all remote setting, but we do use a few.

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Tools that are specific to organizations like salesforce, for example, and.

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Marketing operations, but we try to keep it as minimal as we possibly can, and one.

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Thing that I've seen pop up, I think this will happen a lot more. There are tools.

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That are being developed to bridge a lot of the gaps that we're now seeing and.

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One of the questions I get often is: how do I build rapport with someone.

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Potentially that I've never met or worked with before and there's a cool.

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Company called psych insights and there's a tool called kkona that.

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Actually plugs into your chat tool and it works on insights for each individual.

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Person- and it's really amazing, to give you this snapshot view of hey. This is a.

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Teammate you've never worked before. This is how they prefer to be communicated with this, their red, yellow or green. Today, these kinds of things that you.

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Might be able to get a sense of in the office just by the context clues that.

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You kind of miss out on them remote. There are some tools that are emerging.

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To bridge that gap, that's really cool and I love daren that he mentioned the.

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Aspect right, like unique channels to like talk about things outside of work.

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So I would love to transition a little bit to that topic like how do you create.

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This human connection, with people who are not necessarily in the same city or.

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Even country as you.

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Yeah I get lab, we mostly use slack for informal communication. We fill our slack.

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With topical channels- and we also have location channels so whenever we get.

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Five or six people in a geographic region, whether it's the bay area or.

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Singapore or london we'll create a location channel, and so, regardless of.

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Someone's function, if they're relatively close to someone, they can join that.

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Location channel and when travel is freer, we see a lot of these people.

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Actually make ad hoc co-working days where there will get twenty or thirty.

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People together that just so happen to live together and are live near each.

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Other and work together, we also have a visiting grant where we will partially.

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Subsidized travel to encourage people to travel around the world and you know.

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There get lab team members we're really intentional about in-person interactions.

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We get the whole company together once a year for essentially a week of team.

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Excursions and team bonding we try to get as many people as possible in person.

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For our get lab committee user events and for sales conferences throughout the.

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Year, so, even though we're an all remote company doesn't mean, we don't see each.

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Other we actually love to see each other at get lab. We look forward to business.

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Trips, because it means we get to see people and I think, for a lot of people.

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In co-located companies they'll do anything they can to get out of the business trip, and it's actually quite the opposite for us, because it's a pretty special special occasion to get to see someone in person. That's an.

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Interesting comment: one of the things I personally have noticed as we've gone.

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Through this is my identity, is it related to shopify has been really.

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Attached to a physical presence, I went to particular office that had a certain.

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Word on it, I sat with people, and so my identity was very much rounded. That.

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Office space, but also happened to be the product line within shopify. I worked for.

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What I've noticed now in a digital by default world, is I'm not centered on an.

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Office anymore and does some degree, while I still resonate really highly.

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With my product line, it's far more actually about my geography and I was.

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Talking to a guy that him at john reardon, who runs our european support.

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Team and he's got a ton of experience with remote work and I was talking to.

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Him about some tips and tricks that he's learned as he's gone through it and what they found, what they were doing in ireland and much like you said darren I mean you know us coming together. There's kind of the ritual of it. People really.

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Look forward to it. There was celebrations there the chance to meet other people in bond and enjoy one another, but what he found was.

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And one of the things he was doing in ireland was, he would just find a hotel.

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That you know just so like what is the single worst day for booking out your.

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Conference room, maybe, like you know wednesday's, are terrible because I have on monday tuesday. He said great. What are you gonna charge me and he would just.

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Book it and invite anybody from frankly, anybody wanted to travel and just to.

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Come and work and he would have people from all kinds of different divisions of the business coming together and what they found. Is it just become this cadence? It would be on any given random day given city at a different hotel and.

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They would run it every week or two weeks, but it created a way that it.

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Allowed people to come together to create some human bonding in the middle.

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Of it, but it broke down also a lot of berries across the business and created.

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Way more collaboration and sense of identity, which I thought was really interesting. I look forward to trying some things like that too yeah. I.

B

Actually, love that mark touched on identity. I think this is a really.

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Crucial piece that we should underline here for a long time, especially in north.

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America, our identity as a human, has been way tightly tied to our vocation and not.

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Just our vocation, but four walls and a roof, the actual building that you.

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Commute to every day, so suddenly you have tens of millions of people that.

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Don't do that and they're kind of questioning well, who am I without that.

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Daily commute- and I think it's actually a benefit that this is allowing us to.

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Pause and really question how healthy was that ratio and we're realizing that.

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To some degree, it's not the workplaces, responsibility to fill a hundred percent.

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Of a worker social quota, so it get loud, we actually encourage people to get out.

B

Of work as fast as you can and engage with your family engage with your local.

B

Community and then share those stories back through slack. I'm able to see this.

B

Continual photo role of people in 65 countries doing amazing things at places.

B

That matter to them for me that emboldened and builds relationships in a.

B

Way that can never be replicated by a virtual happy hour or a talent show or.

B

Trivia not to say those things aren't valuable, but encouraging people to be.

B

Where they are and have their identity more focused on wherever they're at it's.

B

A it's a paradigm shift for companies that really value the in office. Culture.

B

And take some degree of pride and how much people are invested in their.

B

Company, but what we've seen is that the more you allow people to be invested in.

B

Where their more they pour into the company as a as a sense of thanks I'll build on that real, quick darren. You remind me of.

C

Something one of the things I found fascinating, we'll try to find a really respect. Is they care a lot about you being the authentic you, whoever you are.

C

We hire you, we didn't hire you to conform to who we are, who we think you.

C

Should be or who you think you should be in an office environment, we hired you so.

C

Bring all of you to work, and I think actually, I think you hit on this.

C

Terrence as an interesting point in moving to digital by default, we're.

C

Actually, freeing people up in a way to actually be even more of who they are to.

C

Spend time not sitting in a car for an hour a day commuting to actually get.

C

More involved in the things they care about the passion projects to actually be more holistically who they are, and I think that's a really interesting observation yeah, and it's really interesting to see. You know where your.

A

Co-Workers live maybe like even their kids. You know, I feel like we're getting.

A

To know more of our co-workers now that everyone's working from home for sure.

C

Yeah so yeah, I love that we we transition into this topic of work-life.

A

Balance and being yourself right, showing up a see yourself at work, because one of.

A

Our someone in our audience asked this question about redefining the boundaries.

A

When it comes to work/life balance, so as leaders, how are you really finding those.

A

Boundaries now that you were working remotely mark, for example, and there and.

A

How do you promote that work-life balance on your team? You wanna take this.

C

As a start kind of touches on some dare- and I were talking about the other day, yeah absolutely so it's an interesting question because.

B

It's exacerbated by the situation that we're at so right now, globally, there is.

B

No, what I call buffer time for anyone doing anything on a weak, priek, ovid.

B

Where I would fly to a worksite, for example, well, I spend an hour packing an.

B

Hour or two driving to the airport an hour to just getting through security.

B

And getting settled well, that's already a handful of hours in my week that I.

B

Cannot do anything productive? I can't do any work, but if you delete that time.

B

From tens of millions of people at once, well now, there's really no excuse to not.

B

Maximize productivity in every single minute other than people are just.

B

Drawing the line for themselves no one's going out to eat. Even you.

B

Groceries are being delivered. Fundamentally, everything has changed.

B

So we weren't really prepared for people to have that much time and we're seeing.

B

A lot of people actually spend more time working as a form of escapism again lab.

B

One of our sub values is family and friends. First work second and we're.

B

Working hard as leaders to reiterate, reinforce it and remind people to do.

B

This we actually spun up a family and friends first day, we've done this on a.

B

Few fridays, where we shut down the entire company, we also have a slack.

B

Turner will reinforce and videos and stories of what they're doing on that.

B

Day to remind people hey do something: that's not staring at your laptop or a.

B

Zoom camera and it's a small step. We believe in iteration and we're trying to.

B

Do better about that, but we've actually seen productivity go up during the.

B

Pandemic, which is not the desired outcome, we want to make sure people are.

B

Taking care of their well being, but it's a thorny subject: it's really tough.

B

Because driven professionals want to do great work and you consider the global.

B

Pandemic and the global economy there's a lot of forces at work and each person.

B

Is adapting to it a little bit differently, so I would say if you're a.

B

Leader make sure you lean in and encourage this, but also lead by example. A few weeks ago, our ceo took a week off and went almost.

B

Nowhere because where's he gonna go, but it was really beneficial to see him.

B

Truly checked out, like meetings were truly pushed out. Decisions were truly.

B

Pushed out this is a reminder that, even if you're just pausing reading.

B

Meditating, calling your parents, something other than work, is really.

B

Useful to make sure you don't burn out yeah we've seen very similar and.

C

Actually, a few weeks ago instituted that through the summer now we expect our.

C

People to take friday's off, we just said we leadership in the business acey.

C

Recognized that you know, we've been through a very, very intense period over.

C

The last you know, 10 to 12 weeks, unprecedented change, certainly in our.

C

Timeline, our time life, sorry and you know to your point down a lot of people.

C

Using work as a form of escapism, because what else am I going to do? And people.

C

Not taking vacations, and so I would completely agree with you number one.

C

From a leadership perspective, lead by example take time you know, take an.

C

Afternoon, to go golfing and do it unselfishly and tell people what you're doing and encourage them to do the same and at a corporate level. We.

C

Actually announced the you know for the rest of the summer, I'm starting in early.

C

June, it was just we're going to 4-day workweeks, everybody gets friday off and it was wasn't a huge big plan. Everybody crammed.

C

All your work into it was like no prioritize. What you need to do, and some stuff is gonna push as a result in weeks up that. But you need time for r&r and we.

C

All need for those of us who are very new to this. We need to learn that new.

C

Balance, I think, leading by example, is so important and I like something that you.

A

Said mark about telling people that you're doing it right, it's so important.

A

To let people know that you're taking time off so they feel that they can also.

A

Take some time off, we have a question from julia in the audience she asked I'd.

A

Love to know what your typical day looks like working from home. I think it's.

A

Related to what we're talking about, because she's struggling with finding a.

A

Routine that works for her, so maybe you can tell us a little bit about that. I.

C

It's a great question and I've been trying to figure it out and I live a.

C

Very fortunate life, but I was talking to a colleague as we were going in through.

C

This and he made it fascinating, he just encapsulated really well. They.

C

Said you know, I've spent the last 18 years of my work career, perfecting what.

C

My day looks like get up a certain time. I had breakfast. I go to the gym. My.

C

Commute of work you know, and at the end of work, here's the routine. You know to.

C

Kind of go back until I end up going to bed and we repeat the cycling since 18.

C

Years, I've spent perfecting it, and now it's all at the window, I don't have to.

C

Reimagine and invent what it looks like in daring me to come to the office. The.

C

Challenger, the default typically is well, they take whatever. I did here, my not for.

C

Replicated here and I've been attempting to actually say no, this is the way this.

C

World look like what does this world look like it? So I'm still learning but.

C

For me, like I found, I need to get up I'm before most of the family in the morning.

C

And I do not want to start work. I need to get on exercise this morning on golf.

C

9 holes and you know, got an hour and a half outside for a walk. And then you.

C

Know I can start my day on of 88 o'clock run until 5:00 or 5:30 ending has been.

C

Really difficult for me trying to draw a line and say now: I'm walking away from.

C

This and I'm going to and for me I found I have to actually physically leave the.

C

House for 20 minutes and then the day to be compressed and chill out and become a.

C

Dad again and not the jerk from the office, and so I'm still learning those.

C

Things, but that's what I have found I found something in the morning: getting out of the house is been really important. At the end of day, physical mean even for a short period of time, helps mentally break. That.

C

All the other one, a lot is a dedicated physical space and so having dedicated.

C

Space in the house that when I leave it, I can close the door and be like no that's the work space, I'm now out of the work space. I really appreciate the.

B

Candor and transparency, a lot of that resonates for the audience. I would.

B

Encourage you to google get lab non-linear work day. I actually wrote a.

B

Page on this, in our handbook and it's a full chapter in the book that I wrote.

B

And I'll talk about that in just a minute. But for those who have just been.

B

Thrust into this, where I would start is, if you're used to having a commute, you.

B

Don't have that anymore book, something in your calendar in the block that you.

B

Used to occupy your morning commute in your evening commute and deliberately do.

B

Something with it, whether that's exercise, meditating, praying call your.

B

Parents, cooking cleaning doing nothing, you can just choose to do nothing and.

B

Rest rest is amazing. Rest ethic is just as important as a work ethic, but do.

B

Something with it, it will remind you to make sure a reminder goes off, because if.

B

Not it's way too easy for the lines between work and life to blur it kind of.

B

Feels like am I working from home or do I just live at work, and you want to make.

B

Sure you don't blur into that live at work type of arrangement mark lane.

B

Another important point which is getting off of work is difficult because there's.

B

Always one more email, there's always one more slack, there's always an excuse to.

B

Hang around longer and if you end work and then 15 seconds later, engage with.

B

Family long term- that's probably not ideal. It is very useful to just plan a.

B

Walk around the house or a walk around your office or something to just get.

B

Your mind in a different state, because the context switching between those two.

B

Is intense sentiments and it's worth acknowledging and recognizing now one of.

B

The things that get lab that we do, that I love is that we have a bias towards.

B

Asynchronous which enables a nonlinear or non continuous workday, I thrive on.

B

This this morning, for example, I started my day very late in the time zone that.

B

I'm in but my son was up early. He has great morning so I was able to enjoy the.

B

Daylight hours at breakfast with him go for a walk. Do some things that I.

B

Wouldn't be able to do at night after he's asleep, and then I intentionally start my day much later than what would be typically expected in.

B

The eastern time zone- and I will work a little bit later, because what am I going.

B

To do in the evening my son's asleep, if this is my peak productivity time, I've.

B

Great focused time, but I'm also not afraid to break that up. This is amazing.

B

For living in off-peak life, one day when we can go to baseball games again for.

B

Example, it's much cheaper and easier to go to a baseball game at 12:30 on on.

B

Wednesday than it is primetime on a saturday and if you're able to live this.

B

Nonlinear life, you can say I'm gonna break up my week and go to a baseball game and then I'm gonna come home and I'm gonna resume working. This allows you.

B

To integrate work into your life instead of life, getting the scraps leftover from.

B

Work, if you can implement this, it is game changing and life changing, but it.

B

Will require some amount of cultural and organizational buy-in. You can't be the.

B

Only person on your team not adhering to certain hours, it's gonna, require a.

B

Collective understanding that this is where we want to go for many companies.

B

This is way down the road you're just trying to maintain business continuity.

B

But I wanted to say this to give you a peek into what remote can look like if.

B

You stick with it and get really good at it. Have you one of the things I've noticed a little bit of, and certainly heard.

C

About is more people looking at pets now because they're now home they're on a.

B

House- and it actually gives them a reason, get out in the morning or get out.

C

In the evening, and so I've got my bench, my colleague john will mention things.

C

Like you know, think about getting a dog if you've thought about it, this is a perfect opportunity to do it. It forces exercise, it gets your mind out of work.

C

And actually helps force kind of beginning and ending the things have you.

C

Seen that darren, that good luck yeah absolutely we have so many pet owners.

B

And look: there's a ton of pets that need adopted. It's a great point.

B

Pets are amazing companions. Pets only know how to love. They are amazing.

B

Creatures, you can learn a lot from them and yeah now that you're home and you.

B

Won't have to board them all day. It's a great reminder to get outside sort of a.

B

Natural forcing function to not sit at your desk all day and also when you look.

B

At a smiling cat or dog, it's really hard to have a bad day. When you look at that.

B

So it definitely is a morale booster and, if you've ever longed to, I wish every.

B

Day was bring my pet to work well now it is so. You can definitely.

B

Take advantage of that, that's very they love the idea of.

A

Replacing your commute with a walk on the park with your new pet there's, one.

A

Topic that I wanted to ask you about before we move on into the q&a section.

A

Because we have lots of questions from the audience and it's this topic that.

A

You mentioned earlier of trust and communication, like building trust with.

A

Your team building trust with your direct reports. I know this is something.

A

You mentioned in the remote handbook or yeah, and there what handbook there and.

A

So I would love to hear from both of you on this topic of building trust with the.

A

People that work with you, specifically your indirect reports. How do you do that.

A

Now that you're working remotely do you have frequent check-ins.

A

I know one-on-one meetings are an important part of the shopify culture.

A

Are they also important that keep love? I would love to hear from both of your.

A

Perspectives on this yeah, we definitely have one-on-ones. We have a pretty.

B

Standard agenda: we want all of our managers to roughly use the same agenda.

B

So it's not jarring. If people transition from one team to another, we kind of look.

B

At this from a push versus pull mentality, if you think about a.

B

Smartphone that you've been able to push notifications for your email every time.

B

You get an email, you're notified of it well over time. That becomes really.

B

Exhausting you've been able to push, and it just hits you even when you may not.

B

Want that, but if you check in a lot which is often recommended in a remote.

B

Setting that's kind of what it feels like and I get that people's natural.

B

Inclination, if you can't see someone in the same room, is to just check in more.

B

But ask yourself, would I be okay with just a barrage of push notifications.

B

Because, essentially, you'd be acting as a human push notification. Not everybody is.

B

Going to be amenable to that, so we tend to err towards the pull side of that.

B

Equation, which is I'll check my email when I'm ready and I will alert my.

B

Manager or team, when I need something unblocked- and this is the spirit of.

B

Asynchronous and iteration, which is do as much work as you can gather the.

B

Knowledge that you can from the handbook and the single source of truth and then.

B

When you cannot go any further, you tag the people that can take it forward and.

B

Then you go and focus your attention on something else, so that you're less.

B

Concerned with how quickly they get back with you and more can that you are in control over what task you're working on in any given time. This.

B

Is really difficult for new employees to grasp if they're used to synchronicity.

B

If they're used to just running one project from end to end and not having a.

B

Few ongoing it's really difficult to get in the swing of that and be okay with it.

B

Might be 12 hours before someone gets back to me on this, but in the meantime.

B

I'm moving this project forward, which I'm helping someone else on. It's just a.

B

Different way of thinking about it, and when we do all of this out in the open.

B

Transparency, inherently breeds trust, and we try to just work as openly as.

B

Possible so slack sometimes look really noisy. We see a lot of work. That's.

B

Ongoing but we allow people to choose what they see and we would rather have.

B

It out there for people to see if they need to or if they want to then to.

B

Withhold it, the transparency comes in interesting when darren, I you know the.

C

Core of it, you know google's done a ton of work, you know perfect aristotle and.

C

Others around this, but you know the core of it because they found trust was one.

C

Of the major factors that actually was kind of the secret ingredient, main team.

C

Teams work and work exceptionally well and at the core of a that trust, is you.

C

Know combination to your character and confidence, and so on one side, neither of.

C

Those things necessarily change, because what you want remote you're still.

C

Accountable, are you delivering what you said you're going to deliver? Are your.

C

Righting wrongs, are you being accountable for you, so you, like all of.

C

That stuff still exists, the part that I've learned or I'm learning, I would say.

C

Is that transparency part there is how to be transparent and so trying to be.

C

You know fairly clear, for example, through slack I'm, you know I put myself.

C

Into a notification that said, like I'm busy for the next hour in a bit, if you.

C

You know text me right now: I'm not gonna get back to you in the middle of doing.

C

Something or I've now left for the day. It's not been turned off and similar and.

C

Even subtle things I noticed in the business we have some people who will.

C

Still keep their calendars private, and so, when you go to their calendar to look.

C

For time it shows this private busy blocks. A bunch of us in leadership, have.

C

Said it and are trying attentionally to be very public with their calendars. It's.

C

A way of creating more transparency, people can see what I'm working on. What I'm doing. What my day looks like if there's something I need that, for some reason, is private and just can't be fine. I can make that one private, but even.

C

Subtle things like that, just to expose yourself more incredible, a higher level of transparency in the business. I noticed.

C

Is subtle things that make a big difference? I think, as we go, the one.

C

Thing, I think we are, or at least I'm struggling with a little bit is, and I think we're getting better as we go is you're used to those holy conversations.

C

To create context and now that's gone and either requires you to go search for.

C

Information to learn it and digest it and take the time and for somebody.

C

Create it, but everything becomes a 30 minute calendar invite and everything.

C

Becomes a 30 minute calendar meeting for one-on-ones, and so I notice increasing.

C

Ly now we're getting we're starting to get better at the 10 minute meetings or.

C

15 minute meetings- or maybe we can do this through slack or a shared conversation with a few other people and get it done at once. So I think we're.

C

Still learning those pieces as we go, that's a very interesting yeah like not.

A

Every meeting has to take 3040 minutes out of your day right. It could be like a.

A

Quick 5-minute call through slack and that's something. A lot of us need to.

A

Learn or have been learning, so we have a lot of questions from the audience. Some.

A

I'm excited to start asking them if you're, okay with that, so one of the.

A

Questions is about the transition to remote work and when teammates don't.

A

Have this space or equipment necessary to work from home? So what are at? What.

A

Actions are your companies taking to support these people yeah one of the.

C

Things actually back up on this one. You know one of the things that's been.

C

Interesting, is you look at the last, you know 15 years. I suppose we're spend this.

C

Kind of movement led by technology to make our office environment its more.

C

Comfortable and look more like home, and so we went from these- you know drab gray,.

C

Cubicle, driven to at least in shopify office, is a beautiful space comfortable.

C

Couches, how do you like to work you like to work? You know an office by yourself.

C

You like to work in a large area: do you need a table, a couch arawa, and so we.

C

Tried to replicate effectively home and now we're in this new world, where we're.

C

Starting to take our home office and or sorry, you know, which is home and.

C

Actually, trying to figure, how do we professionalize it now to make it look.

C

More like the office environment that we're looking for at the moment, and so I.

C

Think we're you know we're learning a lot as we go through, but their husband.

C

Is really interesting transition now of us trying to create good, a home office space that actually feels like office and actually feels like a.

C

Good work, environment, yeah get lab. We understand that everyone's individual.

B

Workspace needs are going to be different. You may have ergonomic challenges, mobility challenges. We allow people to spend company money like it's.

B

Their own and build the workspace that works for them. This works because we're.

B

We hire people that look to this. They have generally worked remotely before.

B

They want to work remotely, they have ambitions of creating a.

B

Workspace that works for them, so they love the autonomy of being able to do.

B

That there's also a company called first base that essentially ships an office in.

B

A box and I think, for a lot of enterprises that are being thrust into a.

B

Mode, this may be a great solution where you essentially send every worker a link.

B

They can go through the form say, I've got a great chair, but I need a new.

B

Monitor I need noise cancelling headphones, but I've got a great keyboard.

B

I'm gonna check what you need it kind of shows up in a box and you arrange it in.

B

A certain way, that's probably a great solution for from many companies, but the.

B

Truth is workspace, is huge, focus is huge, and even if you live in a really small.

B

Space, where you don't have the luxury of a dedicated room, create some sort of.

B

Even if it's temporary and enclave, whether it's a temporary curtain and.

B

Then a set of noise cancelling headphones with an ergonomic laptop.

B

Stand and an extra monitor make yourself comfortable.

B

If you hope to be productive and happy for eight hours a day and a hunched over.

B

A kitchen countertop with a lot of things happening around you, I mean maybe.

B

If you're really good at compartmentalizing but workspace goes a.

B

Long way and for leaders that are in control of the purse strings now is the.

B

Time to reevaluate those expense policies, you, if you had people in a.

B

Skyscraper, probably on access to five or ten thousand dollars worth of gear, a.

B

Really amazing ergonomic setup and now they don't and so you're going to have.

B

To allocate for that and allow for that, if you hope that people will continue to.

B

Be happy and productive where they are when cobit hit and we announced we were.

C

Going to work from home, one of the things shopify did immediately almost without batting an eyelash was every employee was given a thousand dollars to.

C

Spend as they want to outfit their homeland, where they want, and for some literally it was like. I need a super comfortable lazy boy chair because.

C

That's how I like to work for me. It was, I need a standout guest, that's important to me. It helps my work environment in having a home previously.

C

And so show if I went out of the way you just say like straight out just hears.

C

We're figuring a lot of this stuff, oh, but for now thousand dollars kick.

C

Yourself out, because it's gonna take a while to figure out what this thing's gonna look like. I am seeing now increasingly employees that had been.

C

Office, centric historically, who didn't, live and lived in a small apartments, etc.

C

Are now starting make different lifestyle choices and we're seeing people suddenly to say, like I don't know if I want to live in the city like I'm,.

C

Living in a tiny apartment because it was close to my office, maybe now I want.

C

To take that same amount of rent and live in a place where I actually have two bedrooms are gonna dedicated office and grass and space and those things and.

C

So I'm noticing people starting to make more significant lifestyle changes, but I.

C

Think to your point, darren for businesses that are thinking of this.

C

Straight out, spending extra money trust your people to do what's right, to create.

C

The home environment, they need to replicate how they operate or how they.

C

Work best yeah completely agree with that. I want to touch on one other point.

B

That mark alluded to, which is the second and third order effects of this. So if.

B

You were living in san francisco, for example, because that's where you had to.

B

Commute to work and it's in a one-bedroom apartment, you have a.

B

Significant other there, potentially kids at home, obviously not the most ideal.

B

Place to work remotely from a size standpoint from a monetary standpoint.

B

But imagine what can happen once the lease runs out. You can then optimize.

B

Where you live, based on completely different factors based on air quality,.

B

Or schools, or space or closeness to family or elders, and you can actually.

B

Optimize, the home or living space that you purchase based on that will this.

B

Place have fiber-to-the-home doesn't have a dedicated space where I can make.

B

An office you're starting to make very different lifestyle decisions, and this.

B

Is what's so powerful when you look at shopify that they've enabled this by.

B

Default so that gives their people the power and the autonomy to truly make.

B

Those decisions and not be concerned about well will this get rolled back. You.

B

Know if I move five or ten states away- and you know now- I've got a commute back.

B

To the office, what does that look like? Don't leave your employees in limbo, this.

B

Is an amazing opportunity to just send your talent retention through the roof.

B

By truly enabling them to decouple the results that they draw.

B

From the geography that you ran that's great and there- and I know you mentioned.

A

The concept of trusting employees and we have a couple of questions from the.

A

Audience about measuring productivity when people work remotely someone in the.

A

Audience said, I'm totally against babysitting employees or micromanagement.

A

But sometimes it's hard, you know when you're managing a team, that's working.

A

Remotely for the first time, so what is some advice that you can give to.

A

Managers who are suddenly asked to manage a remote team yeah the advice I.

B

Give to start out is that you have to shift from being a director and hand.

B

Holder to just open to feedback and an unblocker.

B

The role of the manager mostly becomes unblocking, and that requires a culture.

B

Of trust, where your directs will come to you and say this is where I'm at on a.

B

Project I can't figure out how to get around this thing. Can you help me get around this thing, so you are really reliant on your people, telling you what.

B

They need and then you empowering and equipping them as a leader to run really.

B

Fast and do what they need to do. I think this should have always been the case.

B

This is probably a better approach, even in the office, but there's really no.

B

Other way around it in our remote setting.

B

Yeah the hundred percent agree with you and I think that keyword you hit on.

C

There- and you mentioned trust- I mean- is it leader in a manager if.

C

You're not hiring people that you can trust to work when you're not around. You.

C

Probably have some bigger issues that you need to look at, but assuming you've.

C

Got people that you trust that they want to do a good job? They want to work hard.

C

And, actually, I think is darren and I were talking about earlier. My concern.

C

Has actually been people when they're not in the office, almost have a fear or.

C

That people are thinking about working in so there's a tendency to actually.

C

Want to over perdue so that your scene is like hey look what I just did, which.

C

Is actually very unhealthy, but I think if it's rooted in really strong trusted.

C

Aaron's point: the job of a manager is to unblock and actually help people push.

C

Things through and actually get the project's done, and one of the things we.

C

Do intentional eternaly to talk a lot about what are the intended outcomes for.

C

People and so we sit down, we've regulated a review. What are our intended.

C

Outcomes, what do we expect over the course of the month of the quarter? The.

C

Half year, what should be the outcome that we're looking for.

C

And now I'm going to trust you to go and do it my jobs to maybe test ideas, make sure we're on the right path, but really try.

C

To unblock you, as I go versus kind of watch your day to day activities, because.

C

I'm gonna trust you're doing the right things, yeah, the one. The other thing I.

B

Want to mention here when it comes to productivity, in the time that we're in.

B

Be really sensitive to people that have lives. Some parents now have kids at home.

B

They're doubling as a home school teacher, the expectations should change. I.

B

Personally, have lost an uncle and a grand mother during kovat, and we can't.

B

Have funerals it, it takes an impact. People are going through things that you.

B

Have no idea about, and so, if you just try to map productivity one to one well,.

B

I saw this in the office and now this is happening, don't draw conclusions, ask a.

B

Lot of questions filled with empathy, because if you just.

B

Run down the assumption path, it's not it's not where you want to go. I think.

A

Asking questions is key, especially if you see an employee is, you know, maybe.

A

Underperforming or just acting differently, there are a lot of.

A

Assumptions that you might be making us a manager that you know you need to.

A

Clarify by asking questions- and I think that's very wise, another question we.

A

Have is how to well mark you mentioned this. A lot of people think that they.

A

Need to work harder or work longer hours, because they're, not the people, are not.

A

Seeing them at the office right, someone in the audience called this work guilt.

A

How can you actively encourage employees to manage that work field and enjoy a.

A

Healthy balance, that's a good question. It's it's a great question. You've.

C

Touched on a couple things, I think one is as a leader you have to model it.

C

Which is hard because I you know, I won't say I'm one of you two at at times and.

C

So I am fairly intentional when I take time off, I'm pretty lot about it and I.

C

Think it's good for people to see. Well, you know. If you took time off, then it's.

C

It should be okay, like whatever you model, your people will tend to follow.

C

And so as leaders model the behavior you're looking for and make sure people.

C

See it, the second is, is to be fairly clear about what look you know I.

C

Mentioned intended outcomes, for example, what do we expect of our people, and so.

C

If our expectation is sitting way up here and they've suddenly had to live at.

C

Home and become full-time teachers and care for kids and.

C

All of these other things yeah work, it's gonna pile up, they're gonna, work too.

C

Hard we're gonna end up having people burnout, so you know try to be very.

C

Darren mentioned the comment being very empathetic with people but work with.

C

People, what is their situation? What is their current environment and what is.

C

The intended outcome: what do we expect them to try to get done? That is my expectation. I'm not expecting that plus 38% and, in fact, if it's that plus 30%.

C

Either we're really bad at figuring out what an intended outcome is, or you were.

C

Really bad at putting it away too many hours on it and either of those are a.

C

Problem we need to look at and so really clear up front with what the intentions.

C

Are a lot of empathy and as leaders model, what you expect yeah echo all of.

B

That it's it's all about articulating the metrics remoter x' guilt is very.

B

Real, if you're used to essentially giving away hours of your life to your.

B

Company as a commute you feel like well now do I still have to do that, even if I.

B

Work from home, no, that was never their time to begin with, and you should be.

B

Ruthless about it, it was your time you are there to deliver results, not to.

B

Commute and on the results front, if you meet the result, then take time off. I was.

B

Just speaking with someone to get lab that they have a metric of this quarter,.

B

Of hitting 20% on something and they're already above 20%, and they said well.

B

Next week, I'm just gonna take some more hours off because I'm at I met the goal.

B

What why would I just work longer hours to mark's point if you're, that far above.

B

The 38% either you're just not a great manager of your own schedule or we're.

B

Really bad at setting metrics that should be okay. That should not be taboo.

B

To say something like that, and in fact I hope it's loud and proud, so that other.

B

People are encouraged to be efficient with their time. It is not a badge of.

B

Honor to work until you're completely exhausted, and we need to remind each.

B

Other of that that's a great point, and I like that you brought up metrics because.

A

There's a great question from the audience around the kpi for percentage.

A

Of public versus dm's, in slack public messages, the one you mentioned there and.

A

They're very curious, they say it's fascinating and they're asking you could.

A

Share the current percentage of the geep lab and we're you'd like that number to be yeah. So our latest report shows about 19 percent of.

B

All messages are in a fully public channel and we're hoping to get that to.

B

25 percent by the next quarter and then on an upward trajectory from there and.

B

While also doing some analysis on why that is, why is that.

B

So low and what can we do as a company to encourage more public communication.

B

Is it something that we're not eloquent enough about in onboarding our people.

B

Are just bringing kind of prior organizational baggage and usage habits.

B

And they just feel uncomfortable about it, so we're digging into it and we're.

B

Gonna try to stand up some managerial training to improve that, but it all.

B

Starts by example, we have team leaders that are publicly saying hey, citing this.

B

Goal to go from 19 to 25%; here's something that I'm pulling out of.

B

A private channel and I'm putting in a public channel that's a fascinating.

A

Metric, I also thought it was very, very interesting and then the same person has.

A

A question about changes and considerations for employees since the.

A

Big seems cobe, it's started, so this person is saying gabe, laughs, handbook.

A

For remote has been very helpful for us, but what we're going through right now.

A

It's not normal right, it's not a normal switch to remote work, so they're.

A

Wondering if there are any changes in the gate lab remote policy since cove, it.

A

Started yeah great point: this is not intentionally designed remote work. This.

B

Is crisis induced work from home, which is very different I'll give you a great.

B

Example, we reimburse co-working spaces or third spaces. So if someone wants to.

B

Go work in a we work or a cody or some other place if their home, just as I'm.

B

Amenable to remote we're totally fine with that and about a fifth of get.

B

Lappers pre cove. It took us up on that. So now we have about a fifth of the.

B

Company that are working in effectively a suboptimal space because they aren't.

B

Allowed to do that, so that's very unfortunate and we're trying to work with those people if their productivity changes it's clearly because of their.

B

Workspace and we're trying to be as sympathetic as possible. The other thing.

B

I mentioned the visiting grant briefly where we would partially subsidized.

B

Travel around the world to visit other employees well because of the travel.

B

Restrictions we've had to put that on pause and the last big thing is our.

B

Annual retreat, where we get everyone together in person this year, it had to.

B

Be virtual and it was definitely a letdown when you have an all remote company for a lot of people. This is the one week a year that they.

B

Get to see someone in person and we don't have that so what we tried to do.

B

On the back of that is start planning for the next one really early on start.

B

Drafting some potential locations, some potential dates to get people excited.

B

And remind them that this will in there was a beginning. There will be an end.

B

We're in the middle and the middle isn't always beautiful, but it is where.

B

Character is built, I think, that's important, reminding people that it's.

A

Just a moment in time and it'll hint there's another question from map for.

A

Mark especially about employee benefits, has the move to digital by default? Have.

A

Any effect on employee benefits at shopify.

A

So I mentioned the straight up shop. If I was very clear of you know: here's free.

C

Money to go, spend as you see fit out to outfit and equip yourself to work from.

C

Home there's been interest, I've talked to some people have asked questions.

C

About and made assumptions of all now they work from home. Are they? You know.

C

Decreasing pay or you decrease the benefit load or something like that.

C

Because you know suddenly you know we don't have an office to support you and.

C

You're living in a little cost center. What have you and know? The answer is.

C

Absolutely not shopify is very, very focused on its people. You know we're.

C

People business we're built on trust. We support young merchants and.

C

Entrepreneurs around the world who are trying to build businesses and we broker and trust. That's it, and so we've been very clear leadership and very clear of.

C

Know our intent is to learn how we don't know how to do today. We're learning it.

C

Our intent is to create the world's best work from home experience and to figure.

C

With digital default means and how to make it the best experience possible, we.

C

Think we did a pretty good job of that in the physical world. Now we got to.

C

Figure out what it looks like in the virtual world or in it sorry, not virtual world, but a remote world, but the quick answer around you know we change.

C

Benefits or periods outside of adding to help people figure out what it looks.

C

Like to work from home in their best environment, the answer is no. That's.

A

That's really good to know. Well, we only have a couple of minutes left.

A

So, first of all, I wanted to thank you for sharing such a great tips and best.

A

Practices for people in the audience and we're gonna make sure to compile all.

A

These great information for our community, as well as a blog.

A

Or something like that, but I wanted to ask you before we leave: where can people.

A

Find you they want to learn more about. You maybe show up if I + d, blab and just.

A

Like your experience with the remote work in general, you can find me on.

B

Twitter and linkedin at deer and murf, and if you visit all remote info you'll.

B

Find all of our guides on remote work and linkedin is probably the best to.

C

Find me I've got lots of contact information on there mark bergen, shopify.

C

I'll pop, oh that's awesome, so thank you very much again to everyone who joined.

A

Us we only have a couple of seconds left before the end of the call. So once again,.

A

I want to think they're in and mark for giving us their time. This was a super.

A

Interesting conversation and I hope we can do it again soon. Thank you. Yes,.

A

Thanks for the invite, this was hi everyone, it was fun have a great day.