Since launching its Team Anywhere initiative in 2020, Atlassian has embraced a fully distributed workforce spread across over 10,000 locations. Guided by scientific research and employee experiments, Atlassian uncovers effective practices to overcome remote work challenges and boost team performance.
- Intentional team gatherings increase connection by 27%
- Daily tracking of priorities boosts productivity by 36%
- 99% of Fortune 500 leaders expect more distributed work
What happened
Atlassian formalized its Team Anywhere policy in 2020, enabling employees to work from any location daily. This shift expanded their workforce beyond 12 offices to more than 10,000 locations globally, requiring new approaches to remote collaboration. The company established a dedicated Team Anywhere Lab, a behavioral science group that runs quarterly experiments to optimize distributed team effectiveness.
Recent experiments highlighted that employees who timeboxed their top priorities and tracked progress daily experienced significant productivity gains. Additionally, Atlassian found that hosting team meetups about three times per year fostered stronger interpersonal connections, especially benefiting new hires and graduates.
Why it matters
Atlassian’s findings underscore a crucial shift in how distributed work is defined — it is about the online work practices rather than physical location. This is echoed by survey results from Fortune 500 executives, with nearly all anticipating a rise in distributed work regardless of existing office policies. The traditional challenges of vague goals and inefficient meetings persist in both remote and office settings, emphasizing the need for deliberate management of work structures.
By using data-driven insights, Atlassian demonstrates that productivity and connection can be enhanced through intentional scheduling, tracking, and periodic in-person interactions. These lessons provide valuable guidance for organizations globally that are adapting to hybrid or fully remote models, ensuring teams remain effective and engaged.
What to watch next
Atlassian plans to continue leveraging its Team Anywhere Lab to run ongoing behavioral science experiments focused on distributed work. Future initiatives aim to refine best practices in time management, goal clarity, and collaboration techniques to further improve employee experience and business outcomes.
Organizations should monitor how Atlassian’s insights evolve as more data accumulates and new remote work challenges emerge. The company’s approach may serve as a benchmark for effective distributed workforce management, especially as hybrid models become the norm and expectations for virtual collaboration intensify.