In what could become a trend in these rapidly changing times, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Twitter has told employees they can keep working from home “forever” if they so desire.
Twitter was a pioneer in moving to a work at home paradigm once the pandemic hit, and in a statement, the company said it was “one of the first companies to go to a WFH model in the face of COVID-19, but [doesn’t] anticipate being one of the first to return to offices.”
The company said if employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue doing so “forever,” then “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,” the statement reads.
Twitter noted that with limited exceptions, offices will remain shuttered until at least September, adding that when offices do open the company will be “careful, intentional, office by office and gradual.” The social media company also said there will also be no business travel prior to September “with very few exceptions” and a moratorium on in-person company events for the remainder of 2020.
“We’re proud of the early action we took to protect the health of our employees and our communities. That will remain our top priority as we work through the unknowns of the coming months,” it said.
This was not the first time Twitter considered moving toward a work from home model. On the company’s fourth-quarter 2019 earnings call in February, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was open to the idea of remote work while expressing dissatisfaction with Twitter’s concentration of employees in San Francisco.
“Our concentration in San Francisco is not serving us any longer, and we will strive to be a far more distributed workforce, which we will use to improve our execution,” he said at the time.
Now the could become ubiquitous in the industry, as other tech giants such as Apple and Alphabet have updated their employees on work from home measures for the foreseeable future, as industry experts project remote work to become a fixture even after the pandemic, with business travel rarer.
Twitter is trading essentially flat on the day, amid the news, while the Global X Social Media ETF (SOCL), which has a healthy allocation of the social media stock, is positive on the day.
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