Rapid Response: What’s wrong with the remote vs. in-office debate? w/Atlassian co-CEO Scott Farquhar
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2024
⏱️ 33 minutes
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Summary
The backlash against remote work is in full swing, with 90% of CEOs reportedly rewarding in-office workers with more promotions and raises. But to Scott Farquhar, co-CEO of Atlassian, that’s a big mistake — and in a just-released study, he’s got hard numbers to back him up. Scott talks with Rapid Response host Bob Safian about how the 10,000-person collaboration-software company — Australia’s premier tech startup — is defying the trend with a bold gambit called Team Anywhere. Adhering to an Atlassian core value (“no bullshit”), Scott shares insights about work flexibility, productivity, and the unexpected power of sporadic, but intentional gatherings. To prepare for the future of work, he says, business leaders need to take risks.
If you're interested in learning more from Atlassian and Scott be sure to check out "Lessons Learned," a report about how Atlassian has navigated distributed work at scale, including experiments they've run, data they've collected, and stories Atlassian employees have shared: https://www.atlassian.com/solutions/distributed/lessons-learned
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Bob Safian. You've been hearing me as the host of rapid response in this feed for a few years now, |
| 0:07.8 | with short newsy interviews alongside the deeper dives of Masters of Scale. Well, I'm excited to share that rapid response is expanding into its own feed. |
| 0:17.0 | We'll be putting out shows twice a week, focusing on the urgent issues that business leaders are dealing with in real time. |
| 0:24.8 | So search for rapid response in your podcast player |
| 0:28.0 | and subscribe to make sure you get all our episodes. |
| 0:31.2 | I'll see you on the other side. |
| 0:34.8 | There's people who say yes we need to be in the office five days a week |
| 0:39.6 | and there's people who say, no, that's false. |
| 0:45.0 | And we've done research around this. |
| 0:50.6 | What surprised me most was the finding that there was no correlation between being in the office every day and a sense of connection to coworkers. |
| 0:55.0 | I think of the Alastian as the canary in the coal mine and as a canary we are singing |
| 1:01.0 | our heart out at the moment. |
| 1:04.0 | This has been very beneficial for us. |
| 1:10.0 | Hi everyone, it's Bob Safian, |
| 1:12.0 | and that was me talking with Scott Farquhar the |
| 1:15.2 | co-ceo CEO and co-founder of Atlassian a 60 billion dollar Australia-based |
| 1:20.5 | software company that sells collaboration tools for 260,000 businesses around the world. |
| 1:27.0 | Atlassian has embraced distributed work at a scale that almost no one else has through a program called Team Anywhere. |
| 1:36.0 | And whether your group is in the office every day or only once in a while, |
| 1:41.0 | their experience offers a fascinating and useful glimpse into one possible |
| 1:46.7 | route for the future of work. Plus, you just got to love Scott's Aussie accent, right? Now, the Wall Street Journal released data last week that remote workers are 31% less likely to get promoted than those who go into the office. |
| 2:04.4 | And the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics |
... |
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