Future of Work: CEOs’ new role as ‘armchair epidemiologists’ means more flexible plans

“Over the past few years, a lot of CEOs have really had to become armchair epidemiologists,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post. “When the pandemic hit, the framing of health and safety quickly jumped to the top” of the priority list.

As a result, Blumenthal said, Warby Parker had to learn how to operate the company when stores and offices shut down and how to determine if and when employees could safely return. To help guide the company’s office reopening decisions, Warby Parker brought health experts to the table. The result? Corporate offices that operate with much more flexibility for employees and health and safety protocols for its optical labs and stores.

Having business continuity despite the pandemic-related challenges was vital, especially when consumers relied heavily on virtual services such as telehealth and online ordering — two areas Warby Parker continues to invest in. Blumenthal says the company envisions a future in which virtual services such as telehealth and augmented reality could be a common way people get their next set of contact lenses or glasses.

Warby Parker started as an online brand in 2010 with its direct-to-consumer business that helps provide corrective lenses at lower prices than traditional retailers. It also donates a pair of glasses for every pair it sells. It has invested heavily in technology and has developed features such as virtual try-on, which uses augmented reality to help people see how they may look wearing different styles of glasses on the Warby Parker app. Though the company still has a long way to profitability — most recently it reported a quarterly loss of $91.1 million — Warby Parker says innovation remains a priority, with tech workers representing its largest corporate team.

“We found that an in-house technology team is absolutely critical,” Blumenthal said.

The company, which went public last year, now employs more than 3,000 workers at 160 bricks-and-mortar stores in the United States and Canada, and two manufacturing facilities. Revenue for its fiscal third quarter ended Sept. 30 rose 32 percent from a year earlier to $137.4 million. Its active customers grew 23 percent from the same period in 2020 to 2.15 million. But its stock price has dropped about 40 percent since the company’s direct listing, and its quarterly net loss has more than doubled year-over-year, some of which is due to listing-related expenses.

Despite its challenges, Blumenthal says, Warby Parker plans to continue investing in the research and development of technologies that could aid optometrists and consumers who need corrective lenses. Here’s what Blumenthal told us about the future of work and the outlook for the industry. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Pandemic learnings

Q: How do you envision the future of work?

A: We believe that the future of work is going to be more self-directed and flexible. The old [idea] that you need to be in the office five days a week, eight-plus hours a day, it’s not absolute. We’ve all demonstrated that we can be highly productive from home. That doesn’t mean that the pendulum should swing and businesses should not return their teams to the office, but maybe five days a week isn’t sacrosanct. The question is, what is the minimum amount of in-person interaction that you need to ensure that you have an engaged team? I don’t think it’s five days a week.

Q: What’s the return-to-office plan for your corporate employees?

A: We have a few different flavors. We have in-person for our workplace operations and facilities team that needs to be in the office five days a week. We have a hybrid structure, where folks are expected to be in the office Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, but can work remotely on Mondays and Fridays. [They also have] a four-week remote option where they can actually work from home for up to four weeks over the course of the year. [And] we have a fully remote option. However, we’ve limited the number of roles that we’ll have fully remote because we do think that the culture of being in office is so critical.

Q: How has Warby Parker dealt with supply chain issues?

A: We’ve been pretty fortunate that we haven’t faced some of the large supply chain issues that a lot of other brands have. Part of that is because we control a lot of our supply chain. We have two manufacturing facilities here in the U.S. where we cut lenses, insert them into frames and ship to customers. And we haven’t seen a lot of the labor shortages that other companies have seen because of how we handled the pandemic. We actually closed our manufacturing facilities and reworked them based on the knowledge of how covid was being transmitted. We introduced masks, introduced symptom checkers, adjusted the production line to ensure that there was safe distance between team members [and] broke up shifts. That created goodwill that enabled us to retain core talent to ensure that we didn’t run into those supply chain challenges.

Q: What is your biggest challenge right now?

A: The biggest challenges operating in this environment are really around uncertainty. You never know when another variant is going to come and how that may drastically change how team members are able to show up to work or how our customers are going to shop.

Q: Any advice for other CEOs on how to plan for the future of work?

A: One of the things that we did was bring on experts to help advise us to make sure that we were always making informed decisions. That helped us come up with the right strategies for our different types of team members, whether they were working in the office, in our stores or in our manufacturing facilities. My piece of advice is always find the best experts, and find them early.

Investing in tech

Q: What technologies have you found to be the most helpful?

A: We’ve been really investing over the last decade in our telehealth capabilities. An example is our virtual vision tests. [The] Warby Parker app enables people to do a vision test from home, and then we’re able to give them glasses or contacts prescription. This was always needed because it’s more affordable and more convenient. But it was absolutely crucial over the last two years of the pandemic when a lot of people weren’t able to go to their doctor’s offices. It’s been great to build projects that leverage cameras and audio but also distance detection and vision technology.

Q: Are virtual vision tests different from eye doctor visits? Are they interchangeable?

A: Our virtual vision test isn’t a replacement for a comprehensive eye health exam. For example, there are certain diagnostic tests that at the moment, you can only do in person to check on certain types of eye disease. But this is a good solution for some folks who need to renew an eyeglass or contact lens prescription. I think that over time, these tools will grow more sophisticated, and we can do more diagnostic tests. I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to completely replace going in and seeing somebody in person.

Q: Has Warby Parker’s virtual try-on feature made any material difference in sales?

A: We found usage increased tremendously during covid. We found that people were using that to buy immediately online, but they would also use it to help prepare for a visit to the store because maybe they want to spend less time in the store. We’ve seen an increase in conversion rates and reductions in return rates.

Q: What tech features do you expect to test in the near future?

A: You’ll see us continue to invest in telehealth and tools for eye doctors. One of the reasons why so many optometrists love working at Warby Parker is they get to focus on clinical care rather than administrative work, and that leads to better patient experiences.

Warby Parker’s future

Q: Are most of your sales online or in stores, and how do you expect that to change over time?

A: When we started Warby Parker back in 2010, we were purely online. We started to open up stores because we realized so much of the market was still in bricks and mortar. A majority of our transactions were taking place inside the four walls of stores before the pandemic hit, and then it flip-flopped. Now it’s sort of flip-flopped back to being in bricks and mortar. But we do find that a majority of our customers are interacting with us both online and in stores.

Q: What does Warby Parker plan to do to stay relevant?

A: Whenever we’re faced with a challenge or thinking through a solution, first we look at other industries, companies or organizations that may have tackled this before. Is there stuff that we can learn from them? But then also looking at if you were to do something completely from ground zero, what would that look like? We’ve tried to infuse this mentality into the culture of the company to ensure that we’re always getting better. Customers’ expectations are always increasing, so we need to be constantly delivering a reality that is ahead of those expectations.

Q: Who do you see as your biggest competitor, and how do you plan to fend them off?

A: We’ve seen so many Warby Parker copycats out there. Thankfully very few of them have gotten any traction. I think that’s because customers want to shop with authentic brands in the age of the Internet. Our biggest challenge is actually not competitors. It’s just letting people know that we exist.

Q: What role does tech play in your path to profitability?

A: Warby Parker is profitable on an adjusted EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization] basis, and we found that technology [helps drive sales for us]. It helps us serve customers better, expands customer lifetime value, but it [also] makes us more productive and efficient. It’s really important to invest in technology that makes our team members more productive [like the company’s point-of-sale system that allows workers to quickly access customers’ history and preferences] but also to be investing in R&D that may translate into innovations in years to come.