Airbnb announces it won’t cut employee salaries if they move remotely

Airbnb announced on Thursday That the “vast majority” of its employees will be allowed to work remotely, and won’t have to cut wages if they move far from the cities around the company’s offices. Airbnb is implementing the change after it had the “most productive two-year period” in its history while working remotely, according to Twitter thread From Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of the company. It is worth noting, however, that it also laying off a quarter of its workforce during that time.

Airbnb is also making other changes to its remote working policy. According to the announcement post, employees will also be able to “live and work in more than 170 countries for up to 90 days a year at each location,” as long as they keep a permanent address on file. The company will also periodically hold “group gatherings, offsites, and social events” to allow its employees to meet face-to-face throughout the year.

picture: Brian Chesky on Twitter

Airbnb’s new model is uncommon, but it’s not unprecedented. Zillow And reddit He promised that most employees would not have to cut their salaries after moving away from major metro areas in 2021 and 2020, respectively. Companies like TwitterAnd SquareAnd drop box It embraced all remote work as well. But there are plenty of companies that operate differently — employees at Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft will have to cut wages if they want to move to an area with a lower cost of living, according to reports such as This is from the BBC (Although some of these companies more friendly towards Distance working from others).

While Airbnb’s new remote work policies certainly sound nice, it’s hard to see the company as a shining example of how to treat employees. A few months into the pandemic, it fired 1,900 of its workers, about a quarter of its workforce at the time. According to a report from New York timesThe values ​​of belonging, love, and being like the family the company promoted went out the window staring into a barrel. A drastic drop in travel rates. Its new policies almost seem like a salve for the rest of the workers — albeit after years of layoffs, and after years of other companies adopting similar policies.

Airbnb is not alone in this regard; Zillow too Laying off about a quarter of its workforce During the pandemic, although that was because she bought too many homes, not because her business relied on something people could no longer do.

It also appears that Airbnb implements some very serious structures in other areas, even if its employees are relatively free to choose where to work. Cesky notes That the company “will operate from a multi-year roadmap with two major product releases per year” to make sure everyone stays organized.

Despite the bumpy road to getting there, Airbnb appears to have landed on a set of policies that can be very attractive to current and prospective employees. (It also happens to work well with the live or work anywhere atmosphere of the company’s rental service.) Although relatively small, it could influence other large companies to reconsider their teleworking policies – if She’s already successful, and her employees are in agreement with her ideas about the future of work.