Joining forces to reimagine the future of work

Long gone are the days where employee productivity was measured based on time spent in the office. This year has forced us all to think bigger and reconsider the role of the physical workspace, as well as what that means for our cultures, practices, and employees. Back in May, we shared our vision for the future of work and as we continue to reimagine that future, we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve formed a coalition with Palo Alto Networks, Splunk, Uber, and Zoom, bringing together industry leaders to accelerate new employee-centric work practices centered around employee choice and flexibility.

Driven by chief people officers and executive leaders, the coalition will establish an open-source community to help companies to reimagine work. Our goal is to bring together companies with shared values and goals to develop new perspectives, approaches, and solutions involving complex topics such as culture, location, benefits, employee experience, learning systems, IT, and even leadership principles.  

In light of the remote work shift we’ve made these past 7 months, our team has been hard at work to develop programs where Boxers feel connected and supported during these challenging times. And where they can continue to live out our value of “bring your ___ self to work.” Some examples include:

• Virtual learning & development: We took our highly popular “week of learning” that happens globally three times a year, virtual! All while improving the experience and impact to our employees. Check out our case study here.
• Virtual hiring and onboarding: Like many companies, we turned our in-person hiring process and new employee onboarding completely virtual within a matter of weeks. Our time to hire has decreased as scheduling has gotten easier. And new employees have been saying they can “feel” the company culture even through Zoom!
• Benefits: To support the well-being of our Boxers, we launched “Fresh Air Fridays”, global company wide days off, offered the Headspace app for meditation and mental health, and partnered with Cleo to support families at Box.
• Communications: Communication during this time is critical to encourage belonging and information-sharing. We transitioned our weekly, globalFriday Lunch Employee All-Hands to fully virtual, created a newCOVID-19 resource portal, new Slack channels like remote work hacks, and have been evolving our remote work guides for Boxers, Managers, and community leaders.
• Employee Experience: To keep employees feeling connected and to recognize their efforts right now, we launched the Proud Cloud Awards, have continued our ERG meetings and events virtually, and kicked off a weekly series of global events called "Community Corner,” with fun classes like cooking, jiu jitsu, andhip hop dance. 

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, Carlos Cabrera, an Implementation Analyst at Box, hosted a cooking class to teach Boxers how to make Mofongo and share more about his Puerto Rican background and culture.

At Box, our goal is to empower people to do their best work, and this is true not only for our customers but for Boxers as well. We look forward to collaborating with Palo Alto Networks, Splunk, Uber and Zoom, to share more of our learnings and continue to navigate these unprecedented times and build a framework for a flexible work environment where employees can thrive. 

To learn more about the FLEXWORK Coalition, sign up for more information.