Meet Janna. She is a Mobile Software Engineer at PayPal.

Originally based out of the office 5 days a week,

She recently relocated to a town further away from the office to take advantage of less expensive housing and a flexible work schedule.

With it, came other benefits to her personal and family life.

To get set up, Janna used PayPal’s home office guidelines to organize her space.

From her workspace at home, she met with her peers and talked about the new plan recently announced by the portfolio team.

Tuesdays and Thursdays in-office, and Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays working from home. In-office days will be for connecting and strategy.

Monday morning is busy with Janna doing virtual pair programming with a colleague to complete sprint deliverables.

Late afternoon Monday is for personal time, because Janna will be back online after dinner.

After the kids have gone to bed, Janna completes her final code check in.

Tuesday morning is an in-person sprint planning followed by an afternoon brainstorming session in the office. The commute is longer, but it’s only two times a week. Earlier, Janna had reserved her team’s favorite Collaboration Suite.

During breaks from the day-long brainstorm, team members use alternate spaces to check emails, attend to private matters, or have side meetings.

Janna uses the morning hours to get a work out in.

For her 1:00 meeting, she uses the online whiteboarding tool to facilitate a virtual ideation session with her team. Together, they work through a problem that she was struggling to solve on her own.

Janna’s Engineering Manager likes to bring the team together on Thursdays for more informal and smaller group discussion around technical solutioning. Team members can reserve seats near one another or reserve a seat in the library for quiet working time. The system also allows people to see who else is in the office for a quick hello.

Janna meets a colleague at the PayPal coffee bar for an afternoon meeting. On her way back to her seat, she fills up on sanitation supplies. Next stop: her assigned locker to grab walking shoes.

At the end of the day, Janna conducts her weekly 1:1 as a walking meeting outside.

Janna normally works from home on Fridays but this week she heads to the office in order to participate in a brown bag lunch hosted by Unity, and to catch up on the PayPal buzz with people outside of her immediate team. It’s easy to grab a workspace since all rooms and desks are unreserved on Fridays, and most people don’t come to the office.

Energized and feeling accomplished, Janna is ready for the weekend!