Atlassian: ‘The fastest way to fail is to make the future of work a part time job’
That’s why the software giant has a dedicated leader and team focused on it’s so-called distributed work strategy. We sat down with Annie Dean, the leader in question, to get exclusive inside track.
HR Leader Insight
Atlassian is 1,000 days into its 'distributed' work strategy.
We spoke to Annie Dean, the executive leading the charge here about their secrets to success.
Her message to HR leaders grappling with remote vs in-person work is that managing where people work is a waste of time. Here's what to do instead!
When COVID-19 hit in early 2020, Australian-American software giant Atlassian, like many companies globally, made the pivot to remote work.
Now, four years later, Atlassian have not called their people back to the office like many tech giants – instead the tech giant has leaned into a different working model, which it calls ‘distributed work’.
As the tech giant has now reached a milestone of 1,000 days in this radical working model, UNLEASH sat down with Annie Dean, VP of ‘Team Anywhere’, which is the name of Atlassian’s distributed work strategy, to find out more.
Let’s take a deep dive into Atlassian’s ‘Team Anywhere’ – what are the secrets to success? What lessons have been learnt along the way? What are Dean and the software giant’s focuses for the next 1,000 days?
Why go distributed?
In her exclusive interview, Dean tells UNLEASH that the reason why the software giant uses the word distributed, rather than remote, hybrid or flexible work, is that “it’s a non-controversial term”.
“People think of remote and flexibility as a thing that some people do or as a choice” – but distributed work really just means that “most work happens on the internet”, explains Dean.
This means that 100% of employees (so-called Atlassians) are distributed – although 40% are remote as they live more than two hours from the office, the company still has 12 global offices that are “bustling”.
She continues: “It’s not really about where you work; it’s about how you work” – and Atlassian is on a mission to “get really, really good at these ways of working”.
1,000 days in, the data speaks for itself. “We’re finding that…each time we measure the impact of Team Anywhere on our business, we see positive outcomes across the board”, notes Dean.
UNLEASH is amazing … having the opportunity to meet with companies providing the cutting edge on HR and learning technology is a real eye-opener … an INCREDIBLE experience!” – UPS
Not only have Atlassians saved ten days per year spent commuting (that’s nearly half a billion minutes), but there has been no dip in productivity.
92% of employees say that Team Anywhere means they do their best work – and 91% say that’s why they stay at Atlassian.
Plus, as a result, in just a year, Atlassian has jumped 40 spots on Fortune’s Best Places to Work ranking – the tech giant now sits at 7 (up from 47 a year ago).
“You spend your entire career in HR trying to climb ten points, and we’ve got 40 in one go because of our endorsement and commitment to this.”
Another key success for Dean is that “we’re bringing on top talent faster” – Atlassian is getting twice as many candidates per role, and candidate offer accept rate has increased by 20%.
“A talent acquisition team can work for years to try [and get] that kind of leverage – we could find it with just one change.”
Atlassian also has greater access to talent because the workforce is 40% remote (and that’s grown from 25% in 2020); in 2023, 57% of the company’s new hires were remote.
This is helping diversity and inclusion. One example that is a huge success for Dean is that in India, “our representation of women has doubled as result of Team Anywhere”.
Plus, while Atlassian still has its offices (80% of employees go to the office every quarter), it is saving money on real estate.
“We don’t have to grow our office footprint at the same rate as we would have before” – these investments can be utilized in other ways, such as to fund remote-focused benefits (like mobile phone and broadband expenses), intentional team gatherings at the offices, and co-working hubs for remote workers.
The secret to success at Atlassian
The question that is on everyone’s lips is how did Atlassian achieve these wins – what were the secrets to success?
For Dean, first and foremost, is having someone – herself and her Team Anywhere team – dedicated to this work.
I have led transformation work related to the future of work now in many different organizations” – she previously worked at Facebook, Deloitte and Werk. “The fastest way to fail is to make it somebody’s part time job.”
While HR needs to be involved – Dean reports into Atlassian’s chief administrative officer who oversees the people function – her team includes real estate professionals, researchers and scientists.
Another key is leading from the top down.
“Our founders are very vocal endorsers of this strategy internally and externally.”
This is the same for the entire executive team: “It is part of our earnings calls, and this something that we’re talking about all the time.”
It’s crucial to “make sure that the voice of leadership reaches every single employee”, according to Dean.
Dean also applauds the Atlassian’s people team for being great partners on this journey – she describes them as “innovative, and always thinking about how to optimize for this company-wide strategy, recognizing how unique it is, and the value it has delivered”.
While top down is important, Dean is clear that Atlassian wants to take employees on the journey with them – the ultimate aim is driving a great employee experience.
For instance, with early career employees who “need special support” in the workplace – “we looked at their preferences related to the office, and we found that they are the cohort most likely to live near the office” (and therefore frequent it).
But Atlassian did not want to generalize, and so focused on building “virtual norms where early career employees can get their questions asked”, as well as supporting them with “structured learning” whether they are in-person or remote.
Keep data and tech top of mind with distributed
Another essential part of Team Anywhere is HR tech; this plays into the fact that the core of the strategy is that work gets done on the internet, and so “our way of working is optimized for online (as opposed to offices)”.
“We wall to wall use Atlassian to run our company” – particularly Atlassian’s own Atlas, Confluence and Jira tools.
Atlassian’s own Confluence technology, as well as Loom (which Atlassian acquired in October 2023) help employees asynchronous working, and to stay connected across time zones.
Using Loom, “on Friday afternoons, I send out a video message to my team that says ‘Hey guys, heading into next week, I really feel like we need to focus on these things’”. Dean shares unedited thoughts, and the team can watch that in their own time, share thoughts, and work with their team to share any context.
Annie Dean, VP, Team Anywhere, Atlassian.
Moving beyond tech, Dean and her team are always learning based on data. “It is all an experiment”, there’s a need to tweak and evolve the strategy over time.
There’s been a lot of changes over the last four years – but a standout one has been “organizing our team by time zone”.
To avoid people working unsustainable hours (and potentially burning out), all teams must have four overlapping working hours per day.
Intention, rather than spontaneity, is crucial for Atlassian’s success – this Team Anywhere strategy is not just about moving the way work used to be done in the office to the remote sphere, it is about working in a more effective way.
Atlassian has redesigned work to move away from meetings – now employees spend 13% less time in meetings, leading to 32% better focus. While the intentional team gatherings have boosted connection at Atlassian by 27%, Dean claims.
So, for any HR leaders still unsure on distributed work – or grappling with leaders who continue to see remote workers as lazy, disengaged, and unproductive – Dean’s message is to first to create “an online-first culture” (that focuses on connection wherever you work).
Plus, there’s so much data that shows that location flexibility is good for diversity, engagement, retention and productivity.
Plus, this trend isn’t going anywhere; Goldman Sach’s recent investor report confirms the permanency of this switch, and leading future of work researcher Nick Bloom has called for the return to office debate to end.
“We really want to focus people on moving away from value judgements about remote workers” – and avoid “inserting bias into the conversation,” and instead focus on the data.
Dean is very aware that this data can be hard to find, and structure, so she is hopeful that Atlassian’s decision to share some metrics “can be a guiding…inspiration [for HR] to go and build the same analysis for their companies”.
Her advice to HR leaders is “you don’t need to manage where people are working from – it is a business process that takes a lot of energy and resources, and it doesn’t create value”.
Instead, “run an experiment for three months, let people choose where they work and measure the outcomes”.
The future of work at Atlassian
Given that Atlassian is still tweaking and adjusting its Team Anywhere – remember, employees’ preferences and desires are not static over time – UNLEASH was keen to find out what comes next for Atlassian.
What will the next 1,000 days look like?
Talking about what’s top of your to-do list, Dean is focusing on the “more rapid and continuous transformation of the workplace”.
Continuing to get data from inside how employees are working, particularly in the offices – and then “making sure that all the experiments we run on how we work really get into the hands of every Atlassian”.
We are such a fertile ground for experimentation” – but “I want to make sure that every Atlassian feels they have all the information to feel successful and inspired in this environment”, adds Dean.
Recent changes that Atlassian has made based on data on offices is to open a new office in Seattle because local employees had requested the option to work on site, and to convert the New York City office from individual desk space to team gathering space. This was because 50% of visitors to that office were from out of town and going to the space for a team meeting (not focus work).
HR leaders who want to do distributed work (or whatever your preferred term) right, stay tuned.
