Twitter To Allow Staff To Work From Home ‘Forever’

Twitter has made a significant decision regarding how people will be working in the future in a post Coronavirus world.

With many staff successfully working from home due to the lockdowns in place across the world, Twitter has announced that staff can opt to work from home ‘forever’ if they want, or return or the office.

It comes after some big name tech firms indicated to staff that they can work from home for the rest of 2020, due to the global Coronavirus pandemic.

Working from home

Twitter made its commitment in a blog post about efforts to keep its employees and partners safe during the pandemic.

“Twitter was one of the first companies to go to a work from home model in the face of Covid-19, but we don’t anticipate being one of the first to return to offices,” it wrote. “We were uniquely positioned to respond quickly and allow folks to work from home given our emphasis on decentralisation and supporting a distributed workforce capable of working from anywhere.

“The past few months have proven we can make that work,” wrote Twitter. “So if our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen.”

San Francisco-based Twitter employs more than 4,000 staff around the world.

Twitter added that if staff chose not to continue working from home, its “offices will be their warm and welcoming selves, with some additional precautions, when we feel it’s safe to return.”

Twitter said that opening offices will be its decision, and that when and if Twitter’s staff come back, the decision will be theirs.

“With very few exceptions, offices won’t open before September,” said Twitter. “When we do decide to open offices, it also won’t be a snap back to the way it was before. It will be careful, intentional, office by office and gradual.”

Twitter also said there will be no business travel before September, with very few exceptions, and no in-person company events for the rest of 2020.

It will assess 2021 events later this year.

“We’re proud of the early action we took to protect the health of our employees and our communities,” said Twitter. “That will remain our top priority as we work through the unknowns of the coming months.”

Rival firms

As the Coronavirus began to impact the globe in March this year, many tech firms ordered all non-essential staff to work from home, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook.

Earlier this month Google said their staff can work from home until the end of the year. Google previously said that Google staff could working from home until 1 June.

Facebook also confirmed that any employee who can do their work from home may continue to do so until year end.

Amazon is known to have told staff who can work ‘effectively’ from home can do so until at least 2 October, however that does not include warehouse staff.

Meanwhile Microsoft is also reportedly allowing staff members to work from home until October.

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