REQUIRING WORKERS TO RETURN TO OFFICE IS A POOR PLAN

Slack chief Butterfield has different idea for future of workplace

Stewart Butterfield’s idea of the future of work is pretty clear cut: Don’t ask workers to return to the office. It’s a “doomed approach.”

The chief executive and cofounder of Slack — one of the fastest growing work communication tools that was bought by Salesforce earlier this year for $27.7 billion — believes the pandemic has charted a new course for the way we work and employees are dictating much of the terms.

That means increased pressure for more efficient tech tools and flexible policies on where and how people work.

“When I see headlines about CEOs trying to lure employees back to the office, I feel like it’s probably a doomed approach,” Butterfield, also a co-founder of photo-sharing service Flickr, said in a recent interview with The Washington Post. “Work is no longer a place you go. It’s something you do.”

Butterfield said he quickly learned that workers could be equally productive and creative working remotely than in-person — a learning that may not have come without the pandemic-fueled closure of the company’s offices last year. The chief executive himself relocated to Colorado during the pandemic and says he was able to go skiing 76 days last season.

But he admits he didn’t always see work in these terms.

“If you asked [me] in February of 2020, could the whole company go remote and maintain the same level of productivity? I would have said no. When something you thought was impossible turns out to be possible, you’ve got to ask yourself, what else do I think is impossible that could actually be pos