In my October blog post, we talked about the future of work and planning for a post-January 2022 with many employees in the office two days a week and working offsite three days a week. However, our ongoing dialogue with leaders, employees, and candidates about the future of work at Proofpoint has led us to a deeper realization about flexibility and work-life integration.
What we discovered—and what we are now updating—is that the two-days-in/three-days-elsewhere hybrid working model is overly prescriptive for our needs. Our culture at Proofpoint is not about where we work, it’s how we work, and in putting those values into action, we have decided to provide leaders and their teams with the autonomy and flexibility to shape that balance of work-life integration and in-person collaboration.
It is important to note that much of what we laid out in October remains the same: our guiding principles, the importance of the employee experience, and our continued commitment to customers. This decision is intended to support our employees and teams as they define what works for them: we’ll continue to fully enable our sited to provide the social connectedness as well as the in-person collaboration that we value. We will also enable our virtual employees to create an experience that works for them.
One of the ways we’re thinking about the greater flexibility is on a more event-driven basis: coordinating the in-person collaboration sessions within and across teams and ensuring that we continually have the lens of social wellbeing and fostering the connectedness that was challenged throughout the pandemic.
We are excited to continue to support our employees, providing flexibility, inclusion, and work-life integration.