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Box Announces Work-From-Anywhere Policy for Employees

Box CEO Aaron Levie recently announced that the company will allow employees to “work from anywhere” until January 2021. By doing so, Box joins other tech companies who have made clear public statements about how they will handle the question of if, when, and how they will ask their employees to return to office spaces (or not). These companies are demonstrating that they are willing to allow their workforce to remain remote. For instance, Shopify has chosen to switch to a permanent work-from-home model. Twitter has also announced that employees will be permitted to choose to work from home permanently. Box will enable this work-from-home transition by

• Providing stipends to improve employee’s work-from-home environment.
• Increasing use of virtual meetings.
• Allowing schedule flexibility.

Source: SoftwareReviews.com Box Vendor Composite Score

Our Take

Box’s product, which facilitates the sharing and synchronization of enterprise files and their integration into workflows, is predicated on being site-agnostic and remote work friendly. Therefore, the company’s WFH announcement is in keeping with the basic philosophy underpinning the value offered by EFSS platforms and their role in a company’s digital collaboration strategy. Indeed, this is the tone taken by Levie’s announcement of the company’s decision:

“By leveraging a modern tech stack with tools like Box, Zoom, Slack, Webex, Okta, O365, G Suite, and more, every team and every Boxer is enabled with best-of-breed technologies that let them do incredible work from anywhere.”

A hypothetical tech company hostile to flexible work policies, yet whose very product enables remote work, would need to work very hard to justify not permitting flexible work options for its employees, particularly as this stance would work against much of its marketing. Box’s decision allows the company to combine public health concern, a focus on employee wellbeing, and an emphasis on the brand’s value.