We asked Nikki Krishnamurthy, chief people officer, Uber, about bringing employees back to corporate offices post-COVID. Among other topics, Krishnamurthy addressed implementing a hybrid model vs. fully in-person work. The interview with Krishnamurthy was part of our latest report, Back-to-Office Checklist: Executives Navigate the Challenges, Unknowns, and Plans for Defining a New Way to Work.

Women Leading Travel & Hospitality: Who within your organization is involved in the planning for bringing employees back to the office? How frequently is this group meeting? What’s your timeline?
Nikki Krishnamurthy: The challenge of bringing our employees back into the office in a safe and positive manner is fairly complex — we have 20,000 employees around the world, and as we’re all aware, COVID isn’t impacting the world in a uniform way. The well-being and safety of our people is our first priority, and this means we need to take both a global and local approach to meet the needs of our employees. Given this complexity, we have a cross-functional COVID taskforce that represents each function from our people and workplaces team that meets on a weekly basis so that we can respond locally in real time.

Nikki Krishnamurthy, Chief People Officer, Uber

WLT&H: Has your team investigated a hybrid model? What does that mean for your company? Are employees choosing their schedules, or is that dictated by the company?
NK: As we prepare to return to offices later this year, we’ve been listening to our employees’ input and preferences about returning to the office, and having discussions around which model makes sense for Uber and our culture. A few weeks ago, we announced that employees can work from home up to two days a week, and from the office three days a week once we’ve returned to offices. We’ve optimized for a number of factors, including productivity, engagement, culture and community, flexibility, and collaboration and teamwork. The combination of in-person and remote work will give people the freedom to do their best work while staying connected to their colleagues.

WLT&H: If you’ve found that your employees have been extremely productive working remotely, as many companies have reported, how do you encourage them to want to return to the office? If there’s pushback to that decision, how will you handle that?
NK: Our employee data shows that two-thirds of employees prefer a “hybrid model,” or a mix of working from the office and from home during a typical workweek. They like working from home when they have to focus independently, but they also value the physical office because of the collaboration and teamwork it encourages. 

While about three-quarters of employees would like a combination of working alongside their teammates in the office and working from home, we also found that up to two days working from home was the most popular choice among our teams. Among those opting for hybrid work, nearly half (47 percent) told us they would like to work from home up to two days per week.

WLT&H: What are the technology considerations in moving to a hybrid work model? How will you ensure inclusivity?
NK: First and foremost, inclusion actually starts with the program and philosophy itself — we were very deliberate about including as many employees as possible in the hybrid program, more than have been eligible for these types of flexible work programs in the past. For roles that had typically been ineligible due to being tied to in-office work responsibilities (such as IT helpdesk employees), it required us to really think through how we could structure the work to offer most employees this flexibility. 

Technology considerations are important to support hybrid work, as there will continue to be remote work. In addition to the basics, such as having a company laptop and good Wi-Fi, we find that tools like Zoom, Slack, and Google Workspace have enabled our teams to be productive working away from the office. We also continue to experiment with tools that can replicate in-office collaboration, such as virtual whiteboard solutions. 

WLT&H: What’s your company doing to acquire and retain employees in this new work environment?
NK: It’s not only current employees who are changing how they think about work, it’s our candidates, too. Great candidates increasingly expect flexibility, and as an employer looking to hire the best and brightest talent, we’ll miss out on great people if we don’t adapt. This is why we’re moving to a hybrid model.

At the same time, we’re a mission-driven company, operating in a hypercompetitive environment, solving hard problems. Our business also exists in the real world, on the streets of thousands of cities, and it’s important we stay connected to the places we serve. 

That’s also one of the things that makes it so compelling to work at Uber — we get to do really interesting work at a fast pace, be creative, and have an impact. But that makes it all the more important we stay connected to each other and to our customers, and to optimize not just for employee productivity, but also for teamwork and collaboration. For that reason, we find it important that our team collaborates in the office a few days per week in addition to working from home.