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Shopify will pivot to work from home as CEO lays out new reality for company

The multinational e-commerce website will be closing its offices until 2021 as it restructures its workplace structure to better suit an ongoing remote workplace ecosystem.

TJ Denzer

May 22, 2020 8:22 AM

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As the COVID-19 pandemic has gone on and forced businesses to reconsider how to move forward in a vastly different commercial ecosystem, many have found it more healthy to work from home, but some are planning for a reality that goes behind the end of the pandemic. e-commerce website Shopify is one such business aiming to adjust its workplace rhetoric for life after COVID-19, as announced by its CEO.

Shopify CEO and Shacker Tobi Lutke announced that his company would be making a full pivot to a “digital by default company” via his Twitter on May 21, 2020. According to Lutke, Shopify will be closing its physical offices until 2021 as the central team works to better accommodate an environment of remote work and employment. This included announcing that the company would be hiring to build upon and support its new remote workplace pivot.

Until recently, work happened in the office. We’ve always had some people remote, but they used the internet as a bridge to the office. This will reverse now. The future of the office is to act as an on-ramp to the same digital workplace that you can access from your #WFH setup.

— Tobi Lutke 🌳🌲🛒🕹 (@tobi) May 21, 2020

“A common misconception about company culture is that if you have a good one, you have to hold on to it,” Lutke wrote. “I believe this to be wrong. If you want to have a great culture, the trick is to evolve it forward with your environment. Take the best things with you from version to version. COVID is challenging us all to work together in new ways. We choose to jump in the driver’s seat, instead of being passengers to the changes ahead. We cannot go back to the way things were. This isn’t a choice; this is the future.”

With that new initiative in place, it would appear that Lutke and Shopify are aiming to be prepared for the longest haul, COVID-19 or not. Many workplaces including Apple and Nintendo have chosen to allow employees to work remotely, but Shopify’s latest effort may be one that other groups need to consider in a changing world as we all work and progress through this pandemic and the reality that awaits on the other side of it.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.