Atlassian chief Scott Farquhar is the only Australian to feature on Forbes’ Future of Work 50.
Forbes has unveiled its inaugural Future of Work 50 list, which highlights the executives, companies and leaders shaping the conversations around “the future of work”. That is, the conversations around flexibility and remote work, collaboration, burnout and mental health and skills shortages.
One Australian has featured in the list: Scott Farquhar, co-chief executive officer and co-founder of US$44 billion software company, Atlassian.
Farquhar made the list after his company launched its ‘Team Anywhere’ program in August 2020. The new policy read that teams should not be bound by the constraints of an organisation’s routines and rhythms. In practice, that meant Atlassian’s some-5,700 staff work from any location in a country where Atlassian has a corporate entity.
In April 2022, the company revealed around 300 staff had moved to a new country. In the US, 10% of Atlassian staff moved to a different state. In Australia, more than 500 staff (22%) now lived outside of Sydney (up from 7% before the policy was introduced).
Farquhar also gained recognition for going head-to-head with Tesla chief Elon Musk on Twitter about Musk’s “1950s”-style view of returning to work.
Slack’s CEO, Stewart Butterfield, told Forbes that Atlassian’s remote work policy influenced his own decision to move to Aspen during the pandemic.