Putting our people first

Putting our People and Customers First: Drift’s Response to Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Dena Upton, Chief People Officer, Drift

Since day one at Drift we committed to being a different kind of company. One that puts our customers first – and one whose CEO has declared “a company is 99% people, 1% everything else.”

It’s cliche, but a company is nothing without its employees. We feel fortunate that all of our employees are healthy, but we want to do our part to help slow and prevent the further spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). That’s why, as of March 10th, we made the decision to have all of our employees – across offices in Boston, San Francisco, Tampa and Seattle – work from home for the time being. We have also canceled all company travel in order to control as best we can healthy outcomes for our employees, the cities where we have offices and the entire country.

Lastly, we also made the decision to postpone HYPERGROWTH London until September 14, 2020.

We know there is a lot of information out there, a lot of uncertainties and that many other companies are facing similar decisions. That’s why we wanted to be transparent and share more about what we’re doing at Drift in the wake of this outbreak.

The below is reflective of our current guidelines as of March 10th, 2020. This situation is rapidly evolving and we will update this post accordingly.

Events

We know that other companies are in the same boat as us – and have made the prudent decision to postpone or cancel upcoming conferences and trade shows.

But we also know that there is still a desire to connect and learn. So, we brainstormed how we could all team up to get everyone together remotely – from the comfort of our own homes.

That’s why we’ll be hosting the RevGrowth Virtual Summit on April 16th and 17th with more than 10 other companies in the SaaS community. This will be a two-day virtual event focused on sales and marketing that gives attendees the opportunity to exchange ideas, offer input and seek out viewpoints from a community of learners gathered from across the globe.

Remote Work

Drift’s offices are currently closed and we are asking all employees to work from home until further notice. We will reevaluate the situation each Friday and at that time decide whether to reopen the office the following Monday, communicating the decision to our teams via Slack and email.

All Drift managers have taken an internal Drift Insider course on how to work from home and best equip their teams to do so as well. In addition, we are encouraging managers to share messages like this:

Company Travel

All business-related travel is canceled until further notice. We believe this is one of the best ways to keep our employees, customers and families safe.​

Employees who partake in international air travel for personal reasons must self-quarantine for at least 14 days after their return. We are also asking that Drift employees share any non-company planned travel with our People Team.

We know that this is a stressful and uncertain time. Hopefully this helps inform you of how Drift is preparing and reacting – and how we are keeping our employees and customers safe.