1,000 days later

Atlassian's evidence-based case study for distributed work

This week, Atlassian released their lessons learned for 1,000 days of distributed work.

TL;DR: distributed work works when you are really intentional about it.

For those unfamiliar, Atlassian leaned in hard to remote-first with Team Anywhere, led by Annie Dean, and have made this stance a differentiator.

Dean calls going distributed one of the biggest bets in Atlassian’s 20 year history. Note: the positioning here is important. They are not saying remote-first. This shows thoughtful comms + marketing partnership to make sure they are taking a clear stance without saying, “our way is better than your way!”

What comes next is important. They use metrics on engagement, culture, and business performance to determine how their approach is working.

What did they learn?

Here are the highlights:

  1. Most teams are already doing distributed work

  2. To boost productivity, innovate on how work gets done

  3. In-person time is critical - it just doesn’t need to happen everyday

  4. You don’t need an office to do great work, but offices still matter

  5. Employees should be able to understand your values no matter where they sit

And how Atlassian recommends you approach where work gets done after collecting data for 1,000 days:

Why is it important?

Where work gets done is a major differentiator for talent. Probably more than any other benefit offered by a company right now. As a parent, I’m especially biased to believe this is the most important part of how work gets done in evaluating companies.

But outside of Atlassian, there’s a big problem with how leaders are talking about it.

Most leaders I’m connected with take an approach of what works for them.

👉️ They need in-person connection.
👉️ They need to see if people are working to ensure accountability.
👉️ They think culture is dying because they feel disengaged.

The job of a leader is to examine: what works for the team.

That’s why Atlassian’s case study is so interesting to me. They went distributed, still offered office locations for people to meet-up, and shelled out the budget to bring people together on a semi-regular basis.

They gave people agency over where they get work done.

Instead of guessing what works, they let their people decide (and backed it up with heaps of data).

And it’s working.

Food for thought.

In the world of HR

✊ Celebrating Black history month: If you read anything as you plan for Black History month, let is be this article from Lola Bakare: What Your Black Employees Wish You Would and Wouldn’t Do For Black History Month.

👶 Open-source parental policy: I have a brand crush on Bobbie. Customer advisory board? No, they have a MOTHERBOARD. I love. But what I love even more is the speed-to-market they took their parental leave policy. It includes data, commentary, their leave policy, and plenty of instruction around how to use or apply to your business. This is perfect for small companies who think they can’t do it — Bobbie is here to say, yes you can!

Kat’s corner

📺 What I’m watching: This is for my parent friends: new episodes of Bluey dropped and luckily my kids are at the age where they want to watch with me. The storytelling on this show is award-winning. Give “Cricket” or “Stickbird” a watch to heal your inner-child.

💗 The brand activation I can’t get enough of: Sweethearts! Y’all. Situationships. First, thank you for the reminder that I need to prep Valentines for 17 kids times two. Second: the cultural awareness of this is next level. To take one of your biggest customer complaints, blurry messages, and turn it into a relevant marketing play is what I want more of from brands in 2024.

Give me more humor and on-the-nose activations. Break the fourth wall with your customers. More 👏 of 👏 this 👏 please.

🏠️ Speaking of brand…: Airbnb launched their newest brand campaign yesterday. If you were watching football, you might have caught it. As a parent, it had me on my feet cheering. I would 100% chose Airbnb over a hotel, except for the fees 🥲.

🎵 My music obsession: Covers of Taylor Swift’s Cruel Summer. My fav right now: Australian musician G Flip. Have you listened? Have you watched?!

G Flip is best known for their wicked drum solos, live performances, and relationship with reality star Chrishell Stause.

Their cover makes one of my fav songs relatable by switching up the pronouns and suddenly Cruel Summer is an angsty lesbian rock banger. The performance is next level. Highly recommend giving yourself a dose of this today:

Special shout-out: A special thank you to my wife, Jordan, for helping me create space to write these newsletters–this is the 18th edition! ❤️‍🔥 

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