Airbnb’s “Live and Work Anywhere” policy, introduced a year ago, has yielded positive outcomes for the company. They have witnessed increased diversity in new hires, a decline in attrition, and a 40% growth in revenue, all attributed to the flexibility of remote work.
The United States has seen nearly 21% of new hires coming from underrepresented backgrounds, while globally, over 52% of new hires are women, marking the highest percentage thus far. Attrition rates have dropped below 10%, and Airbnb achieved its debut on the Fortune 500 list at No. 450.
Despite navigating through the challenges of the pandemic successfully, Airbnb anticipates the forthcoming recession as its next obstacle. As the company enters the second year of its remote work program, it will closely monitor its growth metrics, as highlighted by Dave Stephenson, CFO and head of employee experience at Airbnb, in an interview with Fortune’s Trey Williams.
Based on this principle, we designed Live and Work Anywhere, enabling employees to work from an office or home and work collaboratively in person when it’s really important. It allows them to work up to 90 days in other countries worldwide. It allows them to move anywhere within the country and not change their pay. And it gives them a $500 allowance to help make them more effective at home. It also gives $1,000 a year for an ‘educate anywhere’ allowance, which they can use for themselves or family members. I do want to be clear: We are not remote-first. We think working in person is incredibly important. Some of the best work is done collaboratively together in person. We just think that you should be intentional about when you gather for work.
