Name: Silicon Valley startup Brex joins ‘remote first’ trend in response to pandemic
Brand: sfchronicle.com
SKU: sfchronicle-com-39
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Silicon Valley startup Brex joins ‘remote first’ trend in response to pandemic

preview

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateCorporate card startup Brex’s ads began blanketing billboards and bus stops across San Francisco not long after its founding more than three years ago in the city, broadcasting its presence from the rooftops to the local startups it hoped to attract as customers.Despite its ubiquity, Brex is moving to become less physically centered in the Bay Area. It’s the latest company to make changes forced by the coronavirus pandemic permanent by announcing to employees late last month the company will go “remote first.”“The biggest advantage of remote is being able to hire without geographical boundaries” said Henrique Dubugras, co-founder and co-CEO of Brex. He said the company will continue to have offices in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, New York and Vancouver, British Columbia, but that employees no longer need to show up at a physical location to work, continuing the remote model the coronavirus pandemic has forced on many companies.“If you still prefer working from the office you still can go to the office, but if you don’t you’re not required to,” Dubugras said. “Allowing employees to live wherever they want and wherever they feel happier … for us it makes a lot of sense.”While the vast majority of company employees will be able to work remotely, facility managers and office administration and others will still need to be in the office.The company is asking those who plan to move to stay in a time zone that is within four hours of Pacific Time. Employees will see their pay change if they move to another market, but current Brex employees who relocate before Sept. 1 of next year will not see their pay change until 2024.Anyone hired after Sept. 1 will see their pay adjusted if they move.Facebook has said it may cut pay for employees who choose to leave the Bay Area, and other companies including VMware and Twitter may as well. The same seems possible for some Brex employees who leave the area, although it is not clear by how much.The company is the latest high-value startup to shift away from the office after Twitter and Square said this year they would let most employees work from home for good. Mountain View’s Quora and San Francisco’s Coinbase also count themselves among the growing list of “remote-first” companies.Giants such as Facebook and Salesforce have said they will allow employees to work from home until next year and in some cases beyond.In a memo sent to employees, Brex’s other co-founder and co-CEO, Pedro Franceschi, outlined plans to use the remote model to streamline work and decision-making while still cultivating relationships among co-workers.“The internet will profoundly shape our way of working,” Franceschi wrote. “But rather than looking at how we can replicate the office remotely, we need to look at how the internet can enable our work.”One way Franceschi and Dubugras hope to accomplish that is by relying more on written communication, something the company has been since early this year. The idea is to schedule meetings on Zoom only when an issue proves difficult to resolve.That means fewer chances to connect and chat with co-workers. Dubugras said he hopes to tackle that problem by encouraging employees to intentionally spend more time connecting about things other than work.Franceschi wrote that with almost half of the company working outside of its San Francisco headquarters before the pandemic, offices would probably not feel too different with a remote first model in place.Dubugras admitted that even so, in-person connection can’t be fully replaced with online interactions and he plans on having company gatherings every two months or so once the pandemic is over.A mostly remote company also means employees spend more time at home and risk feeling isolated or overworked.The founders said they want managers to step in to help employees handle their schedules not only to ensure productivity at work but to make sure people are exercising and spending enough time with family and friends.Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutesDubugras said he has been sharing some of his own thoughts and struggles with coworkers using a video blog and that he hopes employee resource groups will continue to help create a community feeling.He said the company has been hiring after it it would lay off 62 employees in May, just over a week after announcing $150 million in new funding.Biz &amp; Tech“The reduction in force was one of the hardest things we’ve done at Brex,” Dubrugas said, adding that most of the company’s recent hiring has been focused on engineering and product design roles, and that with pared down office expenses he hopes the company can invest more in its people.Some decisions are yet to be made, particularly around the company’s nonoffice physical spaces.Dubugras said no final decision has been made about what to do with the Brex-owned South Park Cafe in San Francisco. The restaurant closed for a time in March after a cafe employee for the coronavirus and has not returned to normal hours because of long-term uncertainty around the restaurant industry and how that intersects with the company’s overall strategy.Dubugras said no final decision has been made about the Oval Room either, a members-only lounge located above the restaurant where Brex cardholders can network.With the myriad unknowns of long-term remote work, the company is leaving room for what it calls “iteration,” trying new things and keeping the ones that work.“We shouldn’t forget that remote is still uncharted territory,” Franceschi wrote in his message to employees. “In order to make it great, we’ll need to try out many different things, and even invent some of them ourselves.”Chase DiFeliciantonio is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: Twitter:Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateCorporate card startup Brex’s ads began blanketing billboards and bus stops across San Francisco not long after its founding more than three years ago in the city, broadcasting its presence from the rooftops to the local startups it hoped to attract as customers.Despite its ubiquity, Brex is moving to become less physically centered in the Bay Area. It’s the latest company to make changes forced by the coronavirus pandemic permanent by announcing to employees late last month the company will go “remote first.”“The biggest...

public

Chase DiFeliciantonio

Delivering the Bay Area’s best journalism every day. Subscribe and support the newsroom: http://SFChronicle.com/subscribe

Silicon Valley startup Brex joins ‘remote first’ trend in response to pandemic

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS