Turning 5,000 global experiences into a blueprint for the future of work

A world of work in flux

When COVID-19 forced offices to close almost overnight, the nature of work changed faster than anyone expected. Almost half of all knowledge workers had never worked remotely before, and full-time remote work surged by 262%. Atlassian recognised this as more than a temporary disruption — it was an opportunity to understand how people and teams really work together, and what the future might hold.

We were engaged at a critical moment in mid-2020 to help make sense of these extraordinary changes. Atlassian needed more than anecdotes — they wanted rigorous, global evidence to guide their response and support their customers through the transition.

5,000 voices across five countries

We designed a mixed-methods approach that captured both the breadth and depth of change. Across Australia, the USA, Japan, Germany and France, we combined three complementary research streams to build a rich, multi-layered picture.

We conducted 32 in-depth interviews, each lasting an hour, exploring how people's work lives had shifted. A two-week diary study with 67 participants revealed frustrations and successes in real time — with members sharing video tours, photographs and voice memos from their new home offices. And a multilingual survey of over 5,000 knowledge workers provided the quantitative backbone to contextualise our qualitative findings.

Working closely with in-country research partners in Germany, Japan and France, we navigated cultural nuances and challenged our own biases — ensuring the research reflected genuinely global experiences.

Making sense of complexity

People everywhere were 'Managing More'. To describe the breadth of disruption, we developed the Lens Framework — four interconnected categories of change that workers were navigating every day. Managing identity explored how the line between personal and professional selves had blurred. Managing time captured the new challenges of boundary-setting and coordination. Managing relationships described shifts in collaboration and connection. And managing workplaces reflected the reality that organisations now had as many offices as employees.

Beyond describing what changed, we needed to understand why people's experiences varied so dramatically. Our Experience Factors framework identified three critical drivers — household complexity, role complexity and network quality — that shaped how well individuals could adapt to the new reality.

From insight to global impact

The research became Atlassian's foundation for their public position on the future of work. Our findings were shared globally through Atlassian's Rise of Work Anywhere report, attracting international press coverage — including the Australian Financial Review — and positioning Atlassian as a thought leader in remote work ahead of their landmark 'Team Anywhere' announcement.

But the impact went beyond storytelling. We translated our frameworks into practical tools that teams and organisations could use immediately — a publicly available Miro template and interactive exercises on Atlassian's Team Playbook. What began as research became a living resource, helping thousands of teams navigate their own transition to distributed work.