Airbnb employees could find themselves in unofficial work couples thanks to a practice adopted by the company’s CEO Brian Chesky.
Chesky, who co-founded the short-term accommodation site in 2008, recently said he has an “informal” habit of bringing people into his team to provide another layer of support.
Talking about “Reimagined with Adam Grant” podcast recently Chesky, whose condition, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Indexsaid that he often forms duets from his new employees.
“Four years ago we hired two creative directors, they worked together as a duo. One is more of a creative director and the other is more of a writer,” he explained.
“They wanted to unite: I remember he said: “Well, if he joins, then I’ll probably join.” And they came together and they became one.”
While this type of work arrangement is common in creative advertising, the concept of a working duo impressed Chesky.
“It worked so well that I started thinking about the idea of duets in other areas… sometimes it’s just hard for one person to be a unicorn, to be able to do it all, but if you could create duets, they could cover each other’s strengths. »
Chesky, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, was asked about combating loneliness in the workplace.
Although Chesky’s practice evolved organically, he agreed that the tactic could go a long way toward solving the problem.
According to November study Of more than 2,000 employees at analytics company Perceptyx, more than four in ten employees reported feeling lonely at work.
Men were twice as likely as women to say they felt very lonely, while senior managers also reported feeling more chronically isolated than managers lower down the hierarchy.
Perceptyx found that the effects range from disengagement to decreased productivity, with lonely workers 4.5 times more likely to experience performance difficulties and rely on unhealthy coping mechanisms to cope.
Loneliness not only harms individuals, it also harms the economy.
Cigna Healthcare Loneliness Index It’s estimated that employers lose $154 billion a year due to absenteeism, a figure that could be improved if everyone from interns to executives felt like they had someone to lean on.
Chesky added that he had “never really thought about” how this organic habit could help combat the problem of isolation in the workplace, but added: “I think there’s something to it.
“And I also think that people are on the same path as you because you are a new employee and you [trying] integrate [into] team, but you are a newbie and an extra person. And so I think it’s really important to give people the opportunity to go on a journey together.”
A working duo, not siblings
Although Chesky, who has grown the platform to host more than 1.5 billion guests over its history, previously called his staff “family,” he has since backtracked on that sentiment.
Chesky laid off a quarter of Airbnb’s staff – about 1,900 people – in 2020 at the start of the pandemic.
In announcing the layoffs, Chesky wrote that he felt a “deep sense of love” for all of his employees, which may have sounded like something of an oxymoron for those who lost their positions.
CEO Fortune500 the company changed its internal narrative from family relationships to close professional ties.
He explained: “I wrote this letter quite quickly. I didn’t have much time so I wrote what I felt and this is what I felt and I was very emotional when I wrote it. And it’s true that a company is not a family… you don’t fire your family members.
“I write what I feel, and I felt this sense of protection for people, even people who were leaving, that they weren’t leaving Airbnb completely in every sense of the word. I mean, they walked away with capital, with everything they had on their resume—we built an alumni network.
“We have a very strong alumni network, which is very unusual for a company. It’s a very deep connection.”