Employees at Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) will be allowed to work from home even after the Coronavirus pandemic eventually winds down. Employees will have the choice of working from home or in offices going forward.
Twitter issued a statement to employees stating that they would have the option of either returning to work at Twitter's offices or continuing to work from home. The company appeared to welcome the idea with open arms, stating "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."
Twitter went on to state that, aside from a few exceptions, its offices would not be reopening at least until September for the safety of its employees. When offices did reopen, the company planned on a slower, gradual return to routine work. The company has also suspended most business travel.
The change in policy is hardly surprising considering that CEO Jack Dorsey has previously voiced his support for a remote workforce. Dorsey had expressed his displeasure with the majority of Twitter's workforce being located in San Francisco, going on to say "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."
Twitter is the first tech company to make the decision to allow remote work for its employees permanently. Twitter's contemporaries have updated company directives for remote work but do not appear poised to continue allowing remote work past 2020, at least for the time being. Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) has stated that it will begin a gradual return to office work starting in June, though some employees would continue to work remotely through the end of 2020. Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) has similarly announced that it will allow employees to work from home through the end of 2020.