Twitter one-ups Facebook and Google, say employees can work from home indefinitely

It seems Silicon Valley companies are falling over themselves to show they care about their employees.

Microsoft said that, in the face of the COVID-19 crisis, employees can work from home till October, Facebook and Google went one better and set a deadline no early than 2021, and today Twitter confirmed that employees can work from home as long as they want, telling Techcrunch “Opening offices will be our decision, when and if our employees come back, will be theirs.”

As noted above, Twitter is planning to start opening offices around September, but this will be in a careful and phased manner, and employees who are able to continue to work from home will not be required to show up at the office, something Twitter says they are able to due to their existing “decentralization and supporting a distributed workforce capable of working from anywhere.”

Their statement to Techcrunch notes:

We were uniquely positioned to respond quickly and allow folks to work from home given our emphasis on decentralization and supporting a distributed workforce capable of working from anywhere. The past few months have proven we can make that work. 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. If not, our offices will be their warm and welcoming selves, with some additional precautions, when we feel it’s safe to return. 

Twitter’s full plan includes:

• Opening offices will be our decision, when and if our employees come back, will be theirs. 
  
• With very few exceptions, offices won’t open before September. 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. 
  
• There will also be no business travel before September, with very few exceptions, and no in-person company events for the rest of 2020. We will assess 2021 events later this year.

The news once again suggests Work from Home may become the new normal, which may have a dramatic effect on how we live our lives in the future.