Glassdoor to give up offices in S.F., Chicago
Glassdoor is set to close its last offices in San Francisco and Chicago, doubling down on its commitment to remote work, CEO Christian SutherlandWong revealed Thursday.
The company, which offers employees a platform to anonymously review their workplaces, intends to completely give up the lease for its 117,000-squarefoot headquarters at 300 Mission St. in San Francisco, a location known for its speakeasy and video game room.
Glassdoor initially leased the space in 2019 with the intention of moving in by fall 2020. But it faced delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By June 2020, the company implemented a “Work Where You Want Policy,” and subsequently listed nearly 60,000 square feet of the space for sublease.
Earlier this year, Glassdoor subleased another 29,000 square feet of its office space to Rakuten Group’s international division through 2030.
“Like other companies, we were really pleasantly
“Like other companies, we were really pleasantly surprised to see how productive we still were when working from home.” Christian Sutherland-Wong, Glassdoor CEO
surprised to see how productive we still were when working from home,” Sutherland-Wong told Fortune. “We were very much an inoffice company before that; we believed we needed to be in-person to collaborate and work together.”
The timeline for putting the remaining office space — covering four floors of a 24-story office tower that was formerly Bechtel Corp.’s headquarters — up for sublease was not specified.
Sutherland-Wong expressed the company’s intention to maintain its successful remote work policy permanently.
“We were so productive (working remotely) and employees really liked it, and it really opened up our talent pool to people we never had access to before,” he said. “So it was an incredible accelerant for us in hiring talent.”
Glassdoor had introduced a speakeasy in the office in 2022 to encourage hybrid work. The space, accessible by a secret mechanical door, featured mood lighting, navy-blue vinyl booths and a full bar.
The company’s suite of offices also included a video game room, art installations and various settings for individual or collaborative work.
With approximately 800 employees, about threequarters of whom don’t live near the San Francisco and Chicago offices, Sutherland-Wong said Glassdoor is reevaluating the need for a physical office presence.
“We don’t even think we need an office presence eventually,” he said. “What we need more of is bigger event spaces where we want to bring people together for shorter periods of time to encourage relationship building.”