Twitter has extended its work from home policy all the way till forever.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey emailed employees on Tuesday, May 12, telling them that they’d be allowed to work from home permanently, even after the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown has passed.
The only jobs that require employees to come in are those where there is no replacement for their physical presence, such as maintaining servers.
Dorsey had announced the company's intent to work in a “distributed” way before the virus.
Ultimately, the pandemic forced the company to move the timeline up.
Started in March
Twitter encouraged its employees to start working from home in early March.
That was when the coronavirus began to spread across the United States.
Microsoft, Google, and Amazon instituted similar work from home measures as tech white-collar jobs have been known for their flexibility as long as employees deliver results.
March was also the month that Twitter human resources said the company would “never probably be the same” in the structure of its work.
Those who gave it a shot found that it worked well, evidently.
“People who were reticent to work remotely will find that they really thrive that way,” Jennifer Christie, the head of human resources said.
“Managers who didn’t think they could manage teams that were remote will have a different perspective. I do think we won’t go back.”
Opening up of offices again tentative
In his email, Dorsey said it’s unlikely Twitter would open its offices before September.
Business travel would be cancelled with very few exceptions.
The company will also cancel all in-person events for the rest of the year.
To help employees adjust to added cost of functioning from home, Twitter has upped its allowance for work from home supplies to US$1,000 for all employees.
“We've been very thoughtful in how we've approached this from the time we were one of the first companies to move to a work-from-home model,” a Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.
“We'll continue to be, and we'll continue to put the safety of our people and communities first.”
Top photo via Unsplash