Dropbox will let all employees work from home permanently as it turns its offices into WeWork-like 'collaborative spaces'

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Dropbox will let all employees work from home permanently as it turns its offices into WeWork-like 'collaborative spaces'
Drew Houston, CEO of DropboxMatt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
  • Dropbox just announced it would allow all employees to work from home permanently.
  • The company initially ordered staff to work from home in March, during the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in the US.
  • The company plans to convert its existing offices to coworking spaces to aid in team building and collaboration.
  • Twitter and Atlassian have also allowed all employees to permanently work from home.
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Dropbox is going remote — permanently.

The cloud-storage company announced Tuesday it would allow all employees to work from home going forward. The shift comes after an internal survey found nearly 90% of Dropbox workers said they were more productive at home.

"Starting today, Dropbox is becoming a Virtual First company," the company said in a blog post. "Remote work (outside an office) will be the primary experience for all employees and the day-to-day default for individual work."

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Dropbox initially ordered employees to work from home to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in March.

The company will convert its existing real estate into flexible coworking spaces called Dropbox Studios, where employees can choose to go in to work. These spaces are primarily for team building and collaboration, not for "solo work."

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Dropbox has offices in San Francisco, Seattle, Dublin, and Austin, Texas, but said it may build more flexible studios in other areas.

The company will also allow for greater employee relocation outside cities where there are offices. To help employees in different time zones work together, the company will allow each worker to decide their own work hours.

Dropbox joins Twitter and Atlassian as major firms that have allowed all employees to permanently work from home. Others, like Microsoft and Facebook, said a portion of their workforce would be remote forever.

Dropbox did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

If you have information you'd like to share, you can reach the author at aakhtar@businessinsider.com.

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