Slack boss says office time should be utilised better

Workplace messaging platform Slack's boss has said businesses should rethink how their employees use time in workspaces.

Stewart Butterfield, suggesting dividing tasks, argued that employees — when working in-house — should be doing tasks that cannot be done at home.

The culture of hybrid working has increased since COVID-19 and many staff members work both from the office and at home.

Butterfield told the BBC that office time should be utilised in activities which the employees cannot indulge in at home and via messaging platforms like Slack.

The company, which has HQs in Canada, the US, Australia, Japan, and India, is itself undergoing renovations to create a friendlier environment for the staff. The Slack chief said that the renovations were aimed at helping people build stronger relationships in person.

He recalled the pre-pandemic times, saying that workspaces were like "factory-farm, battery-chicken houses" where people sat at their desks with their headphones and did not talk to anyone.

"(That) was a bit of a waste."

Butterfield said that it was important to allow "people to come together and actually enjoy themselves".

Having said that, the man believes "20% or 30%" meetings in offices are useless and could be "more effective with written communication".

He said he liked Jeff Bezos' idea of meetings where each person has to simply read a memo instead of attending a PowerPoint presentation.