Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has recently announced that its employees can work from home for as long as they want even when the coronavirus pandemic is over. This announcement was made to the employees through the company’s spokesperson on Tuesday.
Twitter said on Tuesday that the probability of opening its offices before September is very low and as such, it is permitting its employees to work from home for as long as they want. This statement was made in an email that was first obtained by BuzzFeed. In this email, Jack Dorsey mentioned how unlikely opening its offices before September is, and how all in-person events will be cancelled for the rest of 2020. Being one of the first companies to move to Telework in March, Twitter has been able to maintain an effective working pace amidst the pandemic. With this move yielding a lot of positive outputs, Jack Dorsey has made it a policy now for employees to work remotely forever if they choose to.
This new policy from Twitter follows the many strive by businesses across the globe to adapt and align with the emerging normal. The social distancing guidelines have forced many companies and businesses into re-thinking and re-evaluating their working strategies.
This new policy is geared towards the company’s aim of achieving a distributed workforce. According to a Twitter spokesperson, Twitter was uniquely positioned to respond quickly and appropriately to the pandemic and how it affects its working environment. The spokesperson went on to say that the company is keen on decentralization thereby having a distributed workforce that can work remotely from anywhere.
Twitter also mentioned that the past few months, since the pandemic forced companies to shut down, has proven that its aim of a distributed workforce can be achieved. With regards to re-opening its offices, the company said it is committed to watching health data as well as government policies in states where its company is functional. The company did not say when it will be reopening, but it mentioned that when that time comes, it would do so in careful, intentional, and gradual phases.
The company noted that the decision to open its offices will be made by the management team but its employees will not be forced to resume work. The decision to come back to work will be made by the employees and no one will be forced into resuming back provided they can work from home.
Twitter is expected to assess and analyze its plans for events in 2021 later this year while paying attention to the response of the World Health Organization to the Coronavirus.
Other Major tech companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft who adopted the telework model have also been forced to revisit their policies. These tech companies, just like Twitter have been exercising caution in re-opening their offices and calling employees back. Google recently announced to its employees that many of them will be required to work remotely from home till the year runs out. Though Facebook is set to begin re-opening offices from July, it has allowed for the majority of its staff who can work from home do so till 2021.
