Internet Giants to Plan Work From Home until 2021

Facebook and Google have announced they will let workers proceed to work from home for the remainder of the year.

The tech titans have announced intentions to resume their offices soon but are conceding more home working flexibility.

Google initially said it would keep its Work from home policy until June 1 but is extending it for seven more months. Facebook announced it would resume its offices on July 6 as coronavirus lockdowns are slowly lifted.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that employees who necessitate returning to the office would start being capable of doing so from July with magnified safety criteria in place.

But the majority of employees who can carry out their duties from home will be able to do so till the end of the year, Mr. Pichai continued.

The announcement corresponds with Facebook’s as more firms start waving out their back-to-work policies.

“Facebook has chosen the next step in its return to work philosophy. Today, we declared anyone who can do their Work remotely could prefer to do so by the end of the year,” a spokesman announced. “As you can assume, this is an evolving situation as employees and their families make great decisions to returning for work.”

Facebook is still deciding which employees will be required to come in, the spokeswoman added. The social media platform was amongst the first tech firms to ask its employees to start working remotely.

Facebook granted employees $1,000 (£807) bonuses for their work-from-home and childcare expenses.

The trend for working from home may satisfy some companies while they redesign their office areas to cater to new social distancing guidelines. Some employees are worried about returning to Work in the center of a global pandemic.

Also, Google set Friday, May 22, as an official day off for employees to decompress, with Pichai stating cares over burnout. “Take the time to do anything you need to do to prioritize your well-being,” the CEO wrote in the memo.

At Facebook, more than 95% of full-time employees are serving from home, CFO Dave Wehner stated on the company’s Q1 profits call last week. He continued that safety is “the No. 1 preference for those vital workers who need to come into our data centers and other departments.”

Facebook finished the first quarter with more than 48,000 full-time workers after 3,300 net new hires in the period (principally in technical functions). Zuckerberg reemphasized on the call that the company intends to hire at least 10,000 more staffers in product and engineering positions in 2020.

Meanwhile, last month Zuckerberg said Facebook had dropped all significant, in-person events through June 2021.

Aside from Facebook and Google, many other tech-based firms have also chosen to continue working from home until the end of the year.

Online Real Estate Firm, Zillow has been operating remotely for two months and will stay for the rest of 2020. E-commerce giant Amazon has also extended its Work from home policy for those who can continue to do so until at least October. It has been narrated, saying that Microsoft is also allowing employees to proceed remote working until October.