Shopify repositions to permanent remote work

Offices to remain closed until 2021, when it will reopen with significant shift in purpose

The head of Shopify Inc. has declared that “office centricity is over” as the company moves to a permanent remote-work model for most employees, with no intention of reopening offices this year.

“As of today, Shopify is a digital by default company,” said Tobi Lutke, chief executive of the Ottawa-based ecommerce giant Thursday on Twitter.

Shopify offices will remain closed until 2021, and then reopen with a significant shift in purpose as the company looks to make the remote work experience the same as for those in the office.

“COVID is challenging us all to work together in new ways. We choose to jump in the driver’s seat, instead of being passengers to the changes ahead. We cannot go back to the way things were.

“This isn’t a choice; this is the future,” Lutke said.

The company is the latest in the tech world to signal a shift to remote work.

Twitter said last week that some employees could work remotely on a permanent basis, while Waterloo-based Open Text Corp. said in late April that it plans not to reopen half its office space and move to a hybrid model of home and office work going forward.

Lutke allowed Shopify’s more than 5,000 employees to work from home months ago when COVID-19 started sweeping Canada.

His decision to have employees permanently work remotely comes after Shopify started beefing up its real estate with a new office in Toronto at the King and Portland Centre, steps away from the company’s first office in Canada’s largest city. It also announced that it would lease about 23,597 square metres of space at The Well complex in Toronto to be built at Front Street West and Spadina Avenue.

In January, the company said it would open its first permanent office in downtown Vancouver at the Four Bentall Centre by late 2020.

The company said Thursday that it was committed to keeping its recruitment hubs open in Toronto, Ottawa, Waterloo, Montreal and its soon to open Vancouver office, but it didn’t say how the move would affect the footprint of those offices.

Tech companies have been a major driver in office space demand in Canada in recent years as the sector undergoes tremendous growth.