The company that has WordPress in ownership, Automattic, has an amazing office workspace in the remodeled and renewed warehouse in SF. The office has high ceilings, a great library, and a unique barn–styled door. Everybody who wants to work there can do it.
Automattic CEO, Matt Mullenweg, told on the Stack Overflow podcast that the office is for sale now because the number of workers there is enormously small.
They had a cool office 6–7 years ago, and it has quite an essential lease, but there are only 5 workers who actually use it. Yes, only 5 in 15,000 ft2; it’s like 3000ft2 per person. There are even 5 gaming tables there.
The company has always given the choice to their 550 workers to work on a home–basis. The office served as a co–working space, and everybody who wanted to work there could have done it anytime. They have similar offices in Cape Town, South Africa and in Maine, Portland. Automattic has very mild conditions for their employees, so if they want to work at another co–working space, they add 250 dollars per month to cover the cost of this co–working space. If their workers want to work from any café, the company pays for their coffee.
As we can see, Automattic encourages their employees to work where they are comfortable and can bring the best results. However, not every company is so in love with remote working. You may remember 2013 and the loud announcement of Yahoo cutting off their remote positions, explaining the best results can be achieved only working close to each other.
Gallup claims almost ¼ of all professionals in the US prefer to work remotely full– or part–time. Such workers tend to work more than those who work in office. However, it may cost companies a dollar.
Many companies work in a similar structure, like Elastic (a software company). They have more than 500 workers all over the world and no headquarters. Twice a year, they gather them all in the US or Europe and pay for their tickets. Shay Banon, Elastic CEO says: When people are strangers, working together through messaging or Slack, the contradictions and quarrels are a regular phenomenon, as indicators like facial expression or intonation are absent. That–s why Elastic uses video chats to sort out every misunderstanding.
