After the Storm: How DONTNOD is creating the next ‘new normal’ Work from home or come back to the office? Why not both? Chris Wallace talks to DONTNOD’s Oskar Guilbert and Matthieu Hoffman about their new flexible working scheme
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n our post-apocalyptic times, I think back a lot to an MCV/DEVELOP feature I wrote almost two years ago now – an interview with OlliOlli developer Roll7 regarding their shift to remote work. The idea of working from home seemed a radical one to me at the time – having been tied to an office for my entire working life, it was hard to imagine being able to effectively work from my own house. Hilariously, the feature actually ran on the cover of the February 2020 issue, with the strapline “Welcome to Work” over an image of a home office – an image that would become much less novel just a month later. You’d think we knew what was coming and had planned it in advance. Quite a lot has changed since then. I’ve now made more copies of MCV/DEVELOP from my
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bedroom than I ever have in an office, and while the last two years have certainly been challenging, this at least has proven itself a welcome change. After all, the whole reason we spoke to Roll7 in the first place was that remote work had been a huge boon for the happiness of its workforce. While working from home certainly isn’t for everyone, I’m hardly alone in this. There are many who fear that once the pandemic is well and truly behind us, the more conservative-minded CEOs out there will push for a ‘return to normal,’ and insist on the return of the one hour commute, overpriced Pret sandwiches and tedious office conversations with our least favourite co-workers. The pandemic has taken a lot from us all, but one of the few victories from this experience has been gaining the freedom to work on our own terms.
