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Ash Alexander is the Head of People at Front, a customer communications software company that has raised over $138 million in venture capital funding and has over 6,500 customers including Shopify, Dropbox, Hulu and Lyft. At Front, Ash oversees all People functions including HR, Recruiting, DEIB, and Workplace Experience.

There’s been plenty of chatter about the future of work, especially within the last year. Employee burnout is at an all-time high: about quit their jobs in September. Many companies are talking the talk, but which ones walk the walk? At , our mission is to help people work happier, so you can imagine that keeping our team happy at work has been something we’ve worked on every single day since the company was born – and has become even more of a focus during the pandemic. Front employees have always loved the in-person culture we foster, so we needed to find creative ways to continue promoting that remotely.

For nearly two years, we’ve been focusing on employee health—mental, physical, and emotional—by keeping teams remote, building in more days off so people can and having managers check in with their teams more regularly. After months of researching and listening to our team, we came up with our Future of Work plan that over 95 percent of employees surveyed were on board with. So how did we do it?

Having empathy for the individual challenges our employees face

Company culture, flexibility, and understanding team preferences are essential—but if the pandemic has taught us anything, employee safety and wellbeing are just as critical. When thinking about Front’s Future of Work plan, we considered the following:

Safe, in-person connections:

Maintaining a vibrant workplace culture can be challenging when all of us sit in our homes staring at screens for days on end. Companies should strive to ensure employees have a thoughtfully designed workplace where they can come, as they wish, to do their best work. At Front, we’re committed to keeping our physical offices in San Francisco and Paris open (while carefully following local health guidelines) and continue expanding our physical spaces worldwide, such as . We’ve also embraced creative new ways for gathering and connecting our team virtually. In 2020 and 2021 we held our , which included AMAs with Front’s executive team, yoga and meditation sessions and outside speakers such as members of the Gold medalist winning New Zealand rugby team, The Black Ferns Sevens who spoke about performing in uncertain times.

Keeping remote work and incorporating flexibility:

Many employees have adjusted to the work-from-home lifestyle, and you should take this into account when thinking about your Future of Work plans. At Front, we wanted to give our employees flexibility with how they spend their time, whether that is through our Flexible Fridays workplace policy or the way we’ve tailored our hybrid work plan to meet individual needs of our employees. In tandem, it was clear that by removing location restrictions, we were able to expand our hiring pool worldwide and find the best candidates possible, regardless of location. We wanted those joining us remotely to feel just as included as those working in person.

Creating work personas to make hybrid work more human

We developed four unique employee profiles working styles based on the four distinct ways our employees have evolved the way they work during the pandemic and how we expect they will continue to work in the future. By creating profiles, we hope to create an inclusive and flexible workforce while giving the team clarity on schedules and expectations for themselves and their teammates:

In-Office:

This employee is full-time staff and is expected to come in four days a week.

Hybrid (the default profile):

The Hybrid profile is for employees who work a minimum of two days a week in the office. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the required days, but they can always come in more often if they wish. We wanted to be deliberate about this because having just a handful of people spread across a big empty office doesn’t achieve what our team is looking for. We want to ensure that when employees come to the office, they’re feeling the bustle, energy, and warmth of their team around them.

Frequent Flyer:

This employee works primarily from a remote but accessible location and is expected to come into the office 1-5 days per month. This profile allows us to expand our access to a larger talent pool still within travel distance to a Front hub.

Remote:

This employee is entirely remote. This profile allows us to hire top talent regardless of their physical location.

Creating space for deep work and work/life balance

Earlier this year, we launched – a new model for work that allows employees to work on the schedule that’s best for them. Flexible Fridays are a dedicated day every week where employees are unreachable. If employees want to work that day, they can, but there are no internal meetings— this is just time to focus with no expectations to answer emails or messages. Employees shared in surveys that what they wanted was the flexibility to get work done how it best suited them. After two-quarters of quiet experimentation to make sure Flexible Friday worked for the team, we decided to share it with the world. We’ve already heard positive feedback— 89 percent of employees shared that they work happier thanks to our Flexible Friday policy. Having a day of no expectations lets them get work done faster and forces people to be more efficient in the four days a week they can meet with one another. Plus, having a full day of uninterrupted work makes a big difference when you need deep focus but can’t find time during a week full of meetings.

Meeting employees where they are

While we’re excited about what the future of work at Front looks like, we’re also realistic: real life is happening now. With that in mind, we wanted to build a Now of Work plan to take care of employees and their wellbeing today. As part of the Now of Work, our team can come into the office if they submit proof of vaccination and wear masks according to local guidelines. We’re also offering free lunches on certain days in the office and organizing limited group gatherings to allow for those who feel comfortable to start building connections with their teams again—or in many cases, meet their teammates in person for the very first time.

The COVID-19 pandemic taught us many things, including that the traditional five-day, 9-5 workweek is broken and unsustainable. It also made companies look at the future of work, with many realizing there is no “one size fits all” approach. It can be easy to prioritize business metrics over people, and plenty of companies have no problem doing such – but to be a genuinely innovative and creative company, it’s critical to keep employee happiness as a business imperative level priority. Happier employees lead to less turnover, higher company morale, and more pride in the work they do. To fix the broken system, listen to your employees' struggles. Take a holistic and realistic approach to what’s working and not working in your current work week schedule. And don’t be afraid to try out a new way of working.