At Reddit, the Future of Work Is Remote

The pandemic is far from over—and neither is this spell of remote working—but Reddit isn’t waiting to make bold decisions about what its workforce will look like when it is. In October, the company announced that its 700 employee-strong workforce across six offices globally can work remotely long after the pandemic subsides, a decision that its executives hope will give employees more flexibility in their personal lives. Additionally, Reddit announced it will eliminate cost-of-living adjustments for different locations in the United States. Even if workers choose to live outside San Francisco or New York, they’ll still get paid like they do. Adweek spoke with Nellie Peshkov, Reddit’s chief people officer, who joined Reddit a month before remote work kicked in, about how the social media company adjusted to remote work during the pandemic, what fuels its new policies and what Reddit’s workforce will look like a year from now. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Adweek: What has it been like hiring and onboarding employees during the pandemic? Peshokov: The good news was everyone is in the same shoes. We had to transition all of the in-person experiences to virtual ones—onboarding, orientation, interviews for our candidates and, in fact, I think there was a positive impact because people didn't have to travel for interviews or orientation. It allowed them to transition into work more smoothly and to learn about Reddit, get to know their teams, while acknowledging that everyone is missing that in-person connection and physical proximity that we, as humans, enjoy. We've transitioned so that everything is virtual, including our employee experiences: all of the internal events from working out together to cooking classes and all-company summits. I am surprised how well our employees have transitioned and embraced this new way of working and connecting with one another. In October you announced all employees can live where they want and eliminated salary bands for different locations within the U.S. What was the thought process behind that? We realized that at some point we needed to provide more clarity to our employees as to what to expect in the future. We were hearing from our employees that they wanted to make some decisions about their personal lives. It became clear that we needed to make a decision and form a philosophy and communicate it to our employees. The first question we asked ourselves was ‘During this pandemic and working remotely, did we experience any drop in productivity, in our employees being effective, being engaged or executing their goals?’ And the answer was no. It was obvious that our employees showed up during the most challenging year. They were just as engaged, collaborative and impactful. And it became obvious that our folks can do this work wherever they are. The second question we asked was ‘How will we support our employees as they make that decision?’ Again, same answer. No matter where our employees were doing that work, their impact is valuable, independent of their location. So why should we pay differently to people who live and work in the same country and take things into consideration that they have no control over in their personal lives? We should pay for impact and performance. Did you get any pushback from employees that want to stay in San Francisco or New York and their colleagues are making the same amount of money to live somewhere far cheaper? Actually, the opposite. They were excited for their colleagues that chose to make a change in their personal lives and relocate to an area with a lower-cost-of-living, where they can have a great life and be paid for the same work they were doing. It shows the power of our internal community and how communal and supportive our employees are. What do you think the role of the physical office is in the future on the other side of the pandemic? It becomes a place where people will experience that sense of connection and can come together to collaborate and work on more strategic, more challenging things where being in person is more effective. Our employees have proven that they can be effective doing the day-to-day work, but the physical proximity and the ability to get together and build relationships more deeply, collaborate more deeply and really feel connected is still important. So it won't be every single day, but periodically it will be important to get together and that's what our office spaces will become—truly spaces for collaboration and engagement as opposed to everyone being at their desks, being heads-down and doing their work. Does this policy help you bring in people who might not have been able to work at Reddit before? Yes, I believe so. This will give us an opportunity to recruit and hire people from more diverse backgrounds and industries and this amazing talent that exists throughout the United States and around the globe that wasn't able to relocate. And we're excited not to ask them to uproot away from their families and their friends and their communities and be able to do this work they're passionate about. I definitely think it will provide more opportunity to increase the diversity of our workforce. Will executives be able to work from anywhere? They can be anywhere as long as they can be effective and be incredible leaders and incredible executives. Moving forward, how will you make sure that remote employees don't feel like second-class citizens? It's very important to be intentional about it. Whether our employees are in the office or working remotely or a hybrid, we have been working hard to ensure that in the future everything—learning and development, company events, onboarding—is that hybrid combination of in-person and virtual experiences. And we will invest a lot in helping our leaders develop the skills to lead distributed teams and make sure every employee, no matter where they are—whether they're right next to you or there on a screen—feel included and feel engaged . So who is actually working in an office for Reddit right now? No one. What's the plan to go back? When will people be allowed back in and what indicators are you looking for in bringing people back? Our employees' health and safety is most important and will always be the only driver for us to make a decision for us to go back to the offices. When it is safe, we will start offering an option and have employees transition back. We've evolved all of our offices to create more distancing between desks and in collaborative spaces. We will transition based on what is safe. We have no business need to be in our offices. We're talking one year after you started and almost a year after the pandemic. What does a year from now look like for Reddit's workforce? Really exciting growth, continuing to scale—we will bring new employees to Reddit. We will bring employees in locations where we haven't previously recruited, including outside of the United States. Our job is to work really hard to maintain that sense of culture internally that is very unique and special. I don't see many other companies committing to a remote future. What advice would you give to CEOs that are nervous about making decisions like these? You have to make decisions that work for your business model, that work for your culture. We were confident that we could lean into flexibility and have a more distributed workforce because our culture is so strong, because everyone is aligned on our mission and knows what we need to accomplish. It truly does not matter for most employees and most roles where they are located. The only advice I would give to another company is to not be afraid to make decisions and then change and evolve them. That's really important—not only for Reddit, but for all companies.

Human Resources

At Reddit, the Future of Work Is Remote

Chief people officer Nellie Peshkov discusses eliminating cost-of-living pay compensation

Scott Nover

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