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Spotify allows employees to Work From Anywhere, including different country and city

Spotify allows employees to Work From Anywhere, including different country and city

Through this programme, employees will be able to choose a full-time WFH system, from the office, or a hybrid arrangement. At the same time, they will have more flexibility when it comes to what country and city they work from.

Spotify has introduced a new programme for its employees - Work From Anywhere.

In a post on its HR blog last Friday (12 February 2021), the Swedish audio streaming and media services provider noted that the events of the past year had accelerated its executive team's thinking about the future, and that it believed it was now time to "start transitioning into becoming a flexible/distributed-first company", thus the new programme.

The programme, it added, is based on the following beliefs that:

  • Work isn’t something you come to the office for, it’s something you do.
  • Effectiveness can’t be measured by the number of hours people spend in an office – instead, giving people the freedom to choose where they work will boost effectiveness.
  • Giving our people more flexibility will support better work-life balance and help tap into new talent pools while keeping our existing band members.
  • Operating as a distributed organisation will produce better and more efficient ways of working through more intentional use of communication and collaboration practices, processes and tools.

Thus, with this new programme, starting the summer of 2021, Spotify employees will be able to choose from two work options, namely:

  • 'My Work Mode': Through this option, employees will be able to work full-time from home, from the office, or a combination of the two. The exact mix of home and office work mode is a decision each employee and their manager make together.
    'Location choices': Employees will also have more flexibility when it comes to what country and city each employee works from (with some limitations to address time zone difficulties, and regional entity laws in the initial rollout of this programme). The post stated: "Here, our employees will have the same 'My Work Mode' flexibility, and if someone chooses a location that is not near a Spotify office, the firm will support them with a co-working space membership if they want to work from an office."

Sharing more on what a flexible work culture means to the firm, the brand said: "A flexible working culture is built on trust, communication, collaboration, and connection and acknowledging that we’re all individuals, with different needs and rituals gives us the right frame of mind to let go of a few chosen truths and instead find what’s right for our business and our people.

"We have considered labour law, tax and insurance readiness for our workforce to be ‘working from anywhere’ – whether that’s working from home, in a café, hotel lounge or a co-working space. And, not forgetting the investment required to make sure the safety and growth of our people."


Lead image / Spotify HR Blog

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