‘Can’t Treat Employees Like Children’: Spotify HR Stands By Work-from-Anywhere Policy

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New Delhi: Spotify is standing out among major companies by continuing its popular work-from-anywhere policy, even as giants like Amazon, Apple and JPMorgan are urging employees to return to the office. Defending this flexible approach, Spotify’s Chief Human Resources Officer Katarina Berg said that the company believes in treating its employees with trust and respect, not like children.

“You can’t spend a lot of time hiring grown-ups and then treat them like children,” Spotify’s Chief Human Resources Officer, Katarina Berg, told Raconteur. She added, “We are a business that’s been digital from birth, so why shouldn’t we give our people flexibility and freedom? Work is not a place you come to, it’s something you do.”

Berg acknowledged that some companies have chosen to enforce a return-to-office mandate, saying, “They are going back to what they know.” However, she sees no reason to impose the same on Spotify employees as the company’s flexible working policy has not affected productivity or efficiency.

According to Raconteur, Spotify has partnered with the Stockholm School of Economics to study the effects on virtual work on collaboration and innovation. “It is harder, and we all struggle to collaborate in a virtual environment,” Berg admitted to the publication. “But does that mean that we will start forcing people to come into the office as soon as there is a trend for it? No.”

Spotify has kept its office spaces and encourages employees to gather in person once a year during “core week.” This annual event allows teams to collaborate and plan strategies face-to-face. “People who work here tend to love music,” Berg explained. “We try to find things that make people want to come into the office rather than forcing them to.”