How to Get Rid of Your Office - Businessweek
Like many distributed companies, GitHub maintains an office despite the work-at-home emphasis. Although employees are not required to show up, some do, at least sporadically. A little more than half of GitHub’s employees live near San Francisco, with the rest working anywhere from Indiana to Australia to Greece. On an average day, 20 to 30 employees work out of the headquarters.
The downside of a distributed workforce is the lack of personal touch with colleagues that comes easily in traditional workplaces. There’s none of those impromptu discussions around the water cooler or whispering across cubicles. GitHub, therefore, plows a pile of money into travel. Employees attend all-hands summits twice a year in San Francisco to help everyone get to know each other beyond their chat room posts.
