Digital First 2024: A 12 months of studying and innovation

1. Concentrate on the intention

In-person time is effective—however solely when deliberate with intention. We discovered that organizations see the largest affect once they design gatherings round clear targets.

In-person gatherings supply invaluable alternatives for collaboration and connection. Nevertheless, these gatherings require a major funding of time and power. In 2024, we set out to determine which methods of gathering have the largest affect on belief, innovation, and execution.

Our analysis on in-person connection confirmed that totally different codecs favor totally different functions:

• Conventional offsites (targeted on technique and team-building) strengthen belief and enhance decision-making.
• Retreats (immersive, inspiring experiences) spark innovation and deepen crew cohesion.
• Coworking (collaborative working periods) speed up progress and assist groups execute effectively. 

We additionally realized that you would be able to drive higher enterprise outcomes by being intentional about who you’re gathering with and for what goal. The suitable group measurement and blend could make all of the distinction. For instance:

• In gatherings for quick groups, 92% reported stronger belief, 85% improved communication, and 63% tackled complicated challenges extra successfully. 
• For cross-functional gatherings, 75% felt elevated belief and 73% noticed improved communication, however these gatherings weren’t finest for skill-building. 
• In management gatherings, 79% felt these gatherings have been efficient at constructing belief and 52% reported working by way of a problem, however they have been much less efficient at making progress towards particular initiatives.

Based mostly on these insights, we created a “gathering matrix”—a easy framework that aligns enterprise aims with the appropriate format (offsite, retreat, coworking) and viewers (crew, cross-functional companions, management) to attain a desired aim. This removes the guesswork, making it straightforward to design gatherings that drive actual outcomes. We’ll be sharing extra on this quickly.

Reframing beliefs round gathering

As an alternative of prioritizing workplace attendance, outline the aims behind bringing individuals collectively: Are you fostering belief? Driving innovation? Making a key determination? Resolve whether or not your targets are finest achieved in-person or nearly, and the way typically it’s essential collect. Lastly, ask your self which groups want to come back collectively to take advantage of progress.

For crew leads trying to design gatherings, discover our Digital First Toolkit for finest practices, together with:

2. Reimagine help programs for distributed groups

Conventional office help programs have been designed for a standard workplace—we rebuilt ours to streamline planning and scale back friction whereas working in Digital First.

Planning in-person gatherings entails complicated coordination throughout journey, studying and improvement, and office groups. By our analysis, we discovered this was resulting in silos and planning inefficiencies and was shifting focus away from the gathering expertise itself. 

To deal with this, we piloted the Offsite Planning Workforce (OPT), a concierge mannequin that merges all related help features into one service. It’s a one-stop-shop for any groups who want end-to-end offsite planning help. 

Our OPT helped Dropbox workers scale back time spent planning offsites by 30% in 2024. By saving time, the crew permits managers to concentrate on vital priorities and designing significant gatherings, moderately than coping with inner processes. Not solely does the OPT remove logistical obstacles; it additionally optimizes the general expertise by curating gatherings to every crew’s aims.

We additionally created self-service variations of the concierge crew, together with assets like “Offsite in a Field.” This end-to-end useful resource gives sensible steerage on planning and executing gatherings with curated playbooks, budgeting templates, and extra. The open-source “Offsite in a Field” permits workers to simply entry the identical planning playbooks utilized by the OPT if they like to self-plan.

Almost each gathering led to key enterprise achievements and earned optimistic suggestions. Listed below are the outcomes:

• 99% of gatherings resulted in no less than one optimistic enterprise consequence
• 98% of planners reported satisfaction with OPT help
• 95% of workers rated their offsite expertise positively
• 95% of planners discovered the self-service assets priceless
• 71% of members stated their crew connections grew stronger

Constructing sustainable methods to help gathering

Based mostly on our OPT, listed below are a number of methods to help gatherings for distributed groups:

• Assume long-term: Develop a multi-year roadmap structured with incremental enhancements—moderately than fast fixes—that ladder as much as massive targets. Breaking down attainable milestones over time lets you observe progress extra clearly with information and key outcomes metrics.
• Set significant metrics: Concentrate on tangible outcomes like time saved, enterprise affect, and worker satisfaction.
• Monitor and adapt: Use common reviews and information, like post-gathering surveys, worker engagement insights, and real-time crew suggestions to refine methods and keep agile.
• Keep related: Common check-ins with cross-functional stakeholders and management guarantee constant alignment and proactively tackle rising challenges.
• Embrace experimentation: Pilot help fashions, collect suggestions, and iterate for steady enchancment.

3. Enhance collaboration to bridge digital divides

Cross-functional collaboration is significant for distributed work. This implies preserving groups in sync, nearly and in-person.

Digital collaboration

We took a better take a look at collaboration patterns throughout the corporate and found a number of nuances that inform effectiveness. Whereas quick groups collaborate successfully, our surveys confirmed that there was extra friction when working nearly with cross-functional companions. 

Particularly, communication can break down when introducing extra groups and layers into work:

• 74% of quick groups vs. 56% of cross-functional groups really feel efficient in async communication
• 69% of quick groups vs. 39% of cross-functional groups get immediate responses
• 65% of quick groups vs. 44% of cross-functional groups respect working hours

We needed to raised perceive why this break down occurs, so we performed extra analysis on collaboration. We discovered that managers wrestle most with this difficulty, typically because of ineffective assembly practices, like inconsistent note-taking or unclear motion objects.

To bridge the hole and overcome these obstacles, we launched a sequence of pilots and instruments for bettering collaboration throughout groups:

• Calendar blocking: By strategically blocking time for alignment between conferences, workers have been in a position to leverage dwell collaboration hours and assembly time extra successfully. These buffer blocks enable distributed groups—who could also be working throughout totally different time zones—to collaborate asynchronously, but nonetheless align in ways in which allow them to make fast selections on pressing deliverables. Workers who block their calendars additionally say they will get and share info sooner.
• Async documentation: By changing a routine assembly with a centralized doc for asynchronous collaboration, members can streamline communication and lower down assembly overload. In reality, 60% of pilot members efficiently transitioned no less than one assembly to async and used the doc as a part of their central mission hub.

Workers who participated in these collaboration pilots reported elevated readability, fewer scheduling conflicts, and higher alignment on shared aims. Because of these findings, we enhanced our steerage on efficient cross-functional collaboration and utilized our Digital First Toolkit to share related ideas and methods, together with:

In-person collaboration

Along with digital collaboration, our groups expressed a need for extra in-person time with cross-functional companions with a purpose to construct belief and transfer sooner on deliverables. Nevertheless, competing priorities and totally different operational rhythms have been main obstacles for managers. 

To optimize in-person cross-functional collaboration and connection, we established:

• A company-wide offsite calendar that gives visibility into all offsites and occasions occurring throughout the corporate. This instrument makes it simpler for cross-functional groups to sync in particular person or coordinate their respective offsites for extra collaboration alternatives.
• Anchor Weeks, which convey cross-functional groups collectively in-person for structured collaboration, management publicity, and mission sprints. We piloted 5 Anchor Weeks in 2024, and 98% of members stated these occasions strengthened their crew connections and collaboration. Due to their success, Anchor Weeks at the moment are an official a part of how we work in 2025.

Supporting robust collaboration with human-centered design

Placing individuals first helps groups work higher by encouraging open suggestions and concepts. For a extra human-centered strategy to collaborating, we suggest:

• Refining digital collaboration practices with agendas, note-taking protocols, and shared calendars.
• Designing cross-functional gatherings with clear aims whereas leaving room for natural collaboration. 
• Implementing scalable, self-serve options to maintain distributed groups related.
• Turning your learnings into easy practices and toolkits that workers can profit from.

For extra assets, discover our Effectiveness and Teamwork toolkits for steerage round efficient digital and in-person collaboration throughout groups.

4. Private company fuels success in distributed work

Autonomy is the brand new forex of recent work. When workers personal their schedules with intention, their focus and well-being soar.

Working successfully in Digital First—or any remote-first atmosphere—requires effort. This contains practices like utilizing calendars to speak availability, facilitating efficient async communication, and coordinating throughout time zones. 

For data staff, taking possession, staying proactive, and dealing independently are key to thriving in a distant atmosphere. This may imply taking the initiative to handle points moderately than ready for route, embracing async work by sustaining clear boundaries, and taking breaks when wanted to recharge. And the payoff is obvious—90% of Dropbox workers title Digital First as a prime motive for staying at Dropbox, and 93% report flexibility as the important thing issue.

Our analysis additionally signifies a definite connection between private company and efficiency. When managers really feel empowered to steer high-impact groups, they set clear expectations, adapt to crew dynamics, and champion versatile schedules. At Dropbox, prime performers stand out by documenting successfully, speaking clearly, and taking initiative.

We additionally discovered that a lot of our highest performers depend on a number of key methods to maximise their affect:

• 83% of Dropbox workers design their schedules in ways in which work finest for them and create nonlinear workdays
• 78% block out focus time in home windows for deep work, reserving different time for dwell collaboration
• 76% take important breaks to recharge and enhance effectivity for higher efficiency

For our engineers particularly, we studied their autonomy and the way they optimize their time for affect. 69% of engineers reported increased satisfaction by batching comparable duties and aligning complicated work with their peak power. However last-minute conferences and scheduling exterior of core collaboration hours nonetheless make it exhausting for some to keep up robust boundaries.

Whereas most workers really feel a robust sense of non-public company, some wrestle to keep up wholesome boundaries. We dug deeper into when workers expertise that sense of company—and once they don’t:

• Motion: Many workers discover it powerful to remain lively in the course of the workday. To assist, we launched a pilot encouraging motion to conferences. Consequently, participant satisfaction with bodily exercise jumped from 47% to 79%, 92% felt extra energized, and 67% reported much less Zoom fatigue.
• Disconnecting exterior of labor hours: Some workers discovered it difficult to completely unplug on the finish of the workday. In response, we leaned on Reclaim.ai, an clever scheduling instrument designed to optimize productiveness and time administration.

Strengthening the private company muscle

Listed below are a number of methods we suggest doing this:

• Present don’t inform—let your calendar talk availability whereas guarding offline time. Leverage instruments like Reclaim.ai to assist take again management of priceless time. 
• Experiment with setting robust boundaries—unplug exterior core collaboration hours and see any enhancements in focus and well-being. 
• Use instruments like Dropbox Sprint—a common search instrument—to shortly discover the knowledge you want throughout numerous platforms, so you possibly can focus extra in your work.
• For managers and leaders, give workers the liberty to do their finest work, no matter that appears prefer to them. The study to unlearn apply can assist unveil what habits is perhaps holding groups again from being profitable in distributed work.
• Acknowledge power patterns and construct a schedule that enhances your private working rhythms. Common check-ins on power ranges assist maintain distributed groups working at their finest. 

Pioneering tomorrow’s office, right now

The fashionable office will proceed to evolve, and we acknowledge there isn’t a single working mannequin that works for each group. However one factor is crystal clear: corporations that mix flexibility with intentional practices will personal the way forward for work.

Due to our Digital First working mannequin, we perceive that the way forward for work is continually evolving. By rethinking how groups join, collaborate, and work independently, we’ve discovered new methods to maneuver ahead.

As a laboratory for distributed work, we’re energized by the probabilities forward. Our successes, challenges, and breakthroughs all contribute to a rising playbook for the way forward for work—one we’re excited to share as we go.