Atlassian in mass software giveaway

The Sydney tech giant says all companies can learn from how it’s handled the COVID-19 pandemic.

Atlassian co-CEOs Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar. Source: Atlassian

Sydney tech company Atlassian has moved to help companies better transition to remote work, releasing several tools for small businesses to use for free as they begin to shift to a post-COVID 'new normal'.

The company's newly appointed chief people officer, Tami Rosen, told The Australian that Atlassian had been using a new survey platform to measure employee sentiment during COVID-19, which was particularly prescient given workers hadn't been able to access the office for months.

As The Australian first reported last week Atlassian, which has thousands of employees globally and is led by billionaire co-CEOs Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, has directed its staff to work from home at least until the end of the year, and that some may choose to keep working remotely.

"When a crisis hits, you have to think to yourself what you can do to support your employees, and put their interests first," Ms Rosen said. "Drawing on experiences I've been through like 9/11, or the 2008 financial crash, communication is the first and most important thing. You also need to know what's on the minds of your employees, so we thought about having a survey where we can understand how our employees are feeling. And we do that now every two weeks."

It's a tool the company is releasing for everyone during COVID-19, and Ms Rosen said Atlassian had always had values of sharing its learnings publicly, to help all teams realise their potential, even if they're teams in other companies.

Atlassian’s free software is available at its website and Atlassian University has also opened up its On Demand, Cloud Training courses for free during the month of May.

"I like to think about this time as like building a plane and flying it at the same time," she said. "When you open source stuff, you also learn, and people share back with you what they got out of it so collectively we can work through these uncharted waters.

"It's a great opportunity not only for us to share what we're doing, but to hear how people are using it and leveraging it for themselves."

The executive added that through the surveys, she realised that people were often sitting at their desks and working for 12 hours a day without taking breaks.

"We went to managers and asked them to think about people taking days off, and being more flexible. We did a floating holiday for everybody in May, to take a day off and relax and recharge, and we started a 'Walk This Way' challenge for teams of four to get to 10,000 to 15,000 steps a day and have friendly competition."

Ms Rosen said it was too early to say how Atlassian's way of working might change more permanently after COVID-19, but said the company would let employees choose to work from the physical offices from January 1, 2021.

"We're making sure we can stay as productive and innovative as we have always been, and that we can leverage this new way of working," she said.

"COVID hit only five weeks into this job, and the character of our company has really come out in this time of crisis. It's reinforced my reason for joining this team, I'm over the moon to be here."

Atlassian is one of the many tech companies to rise in valuation during the pandemic, with its share price up to $US180.25, valuing the company at $US44bn, up from $US120 in March.