Airbnb decided it really likes its Zoom-call-in-sweatpants office situation, telling employees last week that they would all have the option to work remotely permanently. It also said that US-based employees could move anywhere in the country without any change in pay.
Airbnb isn’t the first company to do this, though; Zillow and PwC have introduced similar policies allowing their workplaces to stay virtual in a post-pandemic world (or whatever you want to call where we are now).
The company did point out that it partly wanted employees to have the opportunity to travel since it made a lot of money during the pandemic from people looking to briefly work from a home away from home.
Key comments:
The new rules will allow the company to “hire and retain the best people in the world,” instead of just those within “commuting radius around our offices,” said Airbnb’s CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky in an email to employees.
“More people will start living abroad, others will travel the entire summer, and some will even give up their leases and become digital nomads,” Chesky tweeted in January, saying it was a “decentralization of living.”
