Aussie company Canva’s ‘radical’ eight days a year in the office work from home policy

Staff at one Aussie company have been calling for an extreme change – and the company’s bosses have finally agreed to the transformation.

Workers at Australian graphic design company Canva will only have to show up to the office eight times a year under a “radical” new flexibility policy.

They’ll have to don their work clothes just twice a season and can spend every other day of the year, if they so choose, working from home.

The announcement, made on Monday, applies to all Canva’s staff including at its Melbourne, and Sydney offices in Australia, its Austin office in Texas, US, its Wuhan and Beijing hubs in China as well as a Manila office in the Philippines.

Canva’s 2000-strong Australian workforce now have the choice to basically work from home, permanently.

Canva co-founder Cameron Adams told news.com.au: “We’ve all been going through a bit of radical change the last 18 months.

“We’ve been using that time as a period to experiment.

“Some of it has been forced on us, of course. But over that period we’ve really enjoyed the flexibility.”

Mr Adams himself is already making the most of the policy, as he is now able to spend all his time with his wife and two primary school-aged kids in Tasmania rather than constantly jetting off to the Sydney office for days at a time.

Cameron Adams in Canva’s Sydney Surry Hills office back in 2018 before Covid-19 existed Picture: Britta Campion/The Australian

The policy, sent in a company-wide email, aims to “embrace a more hybrid way of working” but assures staff that “connection and collaboration” are still highly valued.

Canva’s three co-founders – Mr Adams as well as Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht – made the decision after conducting surveys to find how staff were going remotely and that found many were gagging for less time in the office.

According to survey results, 79 per cent of people felt productive working from home while 81 per cent championed the hybrid working model.

“In a completely free world, they [workers] come in at least two times a quarter,” Mr Adams said.

“The rest of the time it’s up to them to figure out how to work optimally.”

However, he pointed out that for some time it might be impossible to visit the office twice in the next three months as lockdowns continue to be extended around the country.

Canva had a working from home policy prior to Covid-19 but it has now expanded to become even more flexible.

Mr Adams on a Zoom call with news.com.au, which will become his most used medium for future work.

Mr Adams believes that by seeing colleagues on limited occasions, it would create more worthwhile conversations between employees when they did eventually meet.

Workers can spend “really quality time with them [each other], not just seeing them every day, where you’re sharing ideas and bonding as a team,” he said.

When asked if these changes were bad for young workers just starting out in the industry who might lack mentoring or socialising opportunities, Mr Adams disagreed.

“Prior to Sydney’s lockdown, we had an on-boarding model to connect with some of our newbie cohort, to create that new connection and feeling that you’re in the team,” he said.

Canva co-founders Cliff Obrecht, Melanie Perkins and Cameron Adams.

Canva, valued at $20 billion earlier this year, is following in the footsteps of Google and other big tech giants who have extremely flexible working from home policies.

In April, Australian tech company Atlassian announced that it only required staff to come into their nearest office four times a year.

And in May, the Australian branch of financial services Deloitte said its employees could set their own work hours, working long hours one day to have another day off, or sleeping in, or waking up early but clocking off early.

Earlier this month, tech giant Google said staff could move away and work from home forever – put it would lead to a pay cut.

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have all warned employees who plan to leave expensive cities like New York and San Francisco that their pay will be slashed – while smaller tech companies like Reddit and Zillow say they’ll pay the same regardless of where employees live.

Although the traditional role of an office is being eroded during these unprecedented times, Mr Adams said Canva would never scrap the office entirely.

“It’s great to be able to work from different places,” but at the same time he said it’s nice “not having to wait for people to unmute themselves on Zoom or being able to scribble on a whiteboard.

“That is how we’re framing the office, an office is somewhere that you come together to be with people,” he said.