Airbnb Adopts Work-From-Anywhere Approach, Including Overseas

As the health crisis has reshaped the way people think about work and travel, companies are feeling their way to new, postpandemic norms. Some are deciding that having teams working together again in offices is the best way forward. Airbnb is backing a more open view of where people can work, adding fuel to a trend that could benefit its business if it leads to more people working from its rental properties.

Google parent

Alphabet Inc.

GOOG 3.82%

and Apple Inc. are urging workers to return to the office a few days a week.

Twitter Inc.

TWTR 0.97%

and

Facebook

parent Meta Platforms Inc. are offering greater flexibility. But a myriad of tax and other rules have generally meant that employees have had to stick to working in countries where they have legal residency. Airbnb is trying to go further than most to help its employees choose their own new normal.

Under Airbnb’s new policy, pay scales for all U.S. and Canadian employees will be standardized at the top-paying tier instead of using location-based tiers. The home-rental giant also announced that its more than 6,000 employees can work for up to three months in a year from 170 of the countries and regions the company operates in.

Airbnb is creating a 20-person team that works with employees to navigate the payroll and tax complications. “It’s basically a giant paperwork nuisance and no one likes to put up with it,” Mr. Chesky said. The company is separately lobbying governments around the world to try to make it easier for travelers to work remotely for extended periods.

How companies compensate relocating workers can be tricky. Tech companies including Facebook said early on in the pandemic that they would adjust pay for people moving to less expensive cities. Others like Reddit Inc. and

Zillow Group

decided to do away with location-based pay. Cloud-software company

Okta Inc.

initially cut pay for relocating workers but later reversed its decision.

The ability to work remotely and travel to places beyond crowded city centers made Airbnb a pandemic winner while hotel chains in big cities suffered. Airbnb’s 2021 revenue topped 2019. Chains like

Marriott International Inc.

and

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.

haven’t bounced back to prepandemic revenue.

Airbnb is forecasting a record number of nights and experiences booked in this year’s first quarter. The company reports first-quarter results next week.

The pandemic boosted the importance of long-term stays for Airbnb. Stays of 28 days or more made up 22% of bookings in the fourth quarter compared with 16% in the corresponding 2019 quarter. Mr. Chesky said long-term stays weren’t down in the first quarter despite a broad reopening.

Some analysts believe that hotel chains and competitors like

Expedia Group Inc.

and

Booking Holdings Inc.

stand to gain as business travel picks up this year. Airbnb needs a new niche as its growth is expected to slow from last year’s breakneck pace, they say, and partnering with companies and remote workers could be a part of the solution.

“Opening it out to a corporate landscape could address your seasonality,” said

Jake Fuller,

a BTIG analyst covering online travel companies. The June through September quarter with summer vacations is typically Airbnb’s most lucrative season.

To cater to companies Airbnb may need to address some safety concerns, analysts said. Airbnb doesn’t own or manage its listed properties, making it harder to police them. Earlier this month, a shooting at a party held in a Pittsburgh Airbnb property killed two young men and wounded eight others.

After a 2019 shooting at a house party in Orinda, Calif., killed five people, Airbnb announced a raft of safety measures including a 24/7 neighborhood hotline to field complaints.

Mr. Chesky said the incident rates have improved over the years and the company has been trying to reduce them further by doing things like blocking one or two-night stays on New Year’s Eve and Halloween for guests without a history of positive reviews.

To encourage countries to welcome remote workers, Airbnb has been lobbying governments to support remote-friendly policies. Around 20 countries, including Costa Rica, Spain, Portugal and Mexico, offer so-called digital nomad visas which let foreigners work remotely for extended periods.

Mr. Chesky says that the new remote work policy will help his employees better serve the needs of what he hopes will become a growing group of globe-trotting digital nomads. The company rolled out dozens of new features in the past two years. Among them: a tool to verify hosts’ Wi-Fi speeds.

“There’s a real good marriage between our business and our work policies,” Mr. Chesky said.

Write to Preetika Rana at [email protected]