Twitter To Allow Employees To Work From Home After Coronavirus

TOPLINE

Twitter will give all its employees the right to work from home after the coronavirus subsides, the company announced on Tuesday, in what is the most drastic change to office teleworking policies by a major tech company amid the pandemic.

KEY FACTS

Crucial quote

“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,” a Twitter
TWTR
spokesperson said.

Key background

Tech companies in Silicon Valley and Seattle, including Twitter, were among the first to mandate their employees work from home, even before local officials issued shelter-in-place orders. While that alone didn’t spare the tech hubs from a more serious outbreak, public health experts say these actions likely contributed to the success of social distancing early on.

News peg

Even as some states begin to open up retail businesses, large companies in major metro areas are still directing their employees to work from home. The announcements from major tech companies indicate that regular office work won’t return for large swaths of the population until at least after the summer.

What to watch out for

Other companies may follow Twitter’s lead and make teleworking permanent.