Father working at home office with little daughter
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In a tweet, Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s new CEO who replaced Jack Dorsey, announced that he would retain the ability to work remotely “forever” as other tech companies urge workers to return to the office.
Twitter will reopen its offices from mid-March. Employees will still be allowed to work remotely or come into the office if they choose to do so. In a tweet detailing the decision, Agrawal wrote: “Business travel is back in effect immediately and all global Twitter offices will reopen from March 15th. The decisions about where you work, whether you feel safe traveling for business and what events you attend should be yours.”
He added: “Where you feel most productive and creative is where you will work, and that includes WFH on an ongoing basis.” Agrawal acknowledged that “distributed work will be challenging” and employees and managers “need to be proactive, intentional, learn and adapt.”
Back in May 2020, then-CEO Dorsey told employees they could work from home or remotely “in perpetuity.” Agrawal will continue this policy but warned that “distributed work will be much, much more difficult.”
In a note to employees, Agrawal said: “When we open a backup, our approach remains the same. Where you feel most productive and creative is where you will work, including working from home full-time. office every day? This works too. A few days at the office, a few days at home? Certainly.”
The new CEO pointed to potential issues as the policy does not primarily focus on remote work, stating: “In 2020, we quickly adapted to virtual work with resilience and flexibility, but almost all of us were working from home. Distributed work will be much, much more difficult. Anyone who has joined a meeting remotely while others are in the conference room knows the pain. There will be many challenges in the coming months and we need to be proactive, intentional, learn and adapt.”
Google CEO Sundar Pichai shared his thoughts on how to ask people to leave their homes and return to the office. Pichai said he is very pleased that the future of work will be flexible. He says it’s important to get people together in the office at least a few days a week.
Google will be open to all options. There will be some people who will work completely remotely; however, the vast majority of workers will come in about three days a week. Once they’re in the office, it’s purposeful—and not just for face-to-face interactions. This will include meetings, collaborating with colleagues from other departments, brainstorming, meeting with clients and suppliers, and building a community. The CEO said he is excited about the changes and believes people and teams will come up with better solutions over time.
In a company blog post for employees written by Chris Capossela, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Microsoft, he said employees will return to the office with a hybrid work model. “As of February 28, 2022,” Capossela wrote, “as of this date, employees will have 30 days to make adjustments to their schedule and accept the work preferences they have agreed with their managers.”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassi, who replaced Jeff Bezos in July, had previously made a game-changing decision. Yassi said in a company-wide memo that professional office workers can work remotely, work in the office, or come in two or three days a week under a hybrid model. The decision on the organization of work will be decentralized – made by team leaders and signed by managers at the level of directors.
In a corporate blog post, the online giant’s CEO said: “When we start thinking about the future, we all ask questions like: ‘When we actually get back to the office, how will it really be, how will I divide my time between office and home, how will others do it, do we need to work together in person every day to better collaborate and invent, and how can we best build connections and culture?”
The CEO wisely remarked, “There is no one-size-fits-all approach to how each team works best. For a while, we will be at the stage of experimentation, learning and adaptation when we get out of this pandemic.” Decisions will be decentralized to group leaders. Remote, hybrid, and other work styles will be left to individual teams, with the final choice to be made at the director level.
People are expected to choose the options that best suit their lifestyle. Some may want to continue working remotely, others may be looking for an office/home hybrid. There may be people who are tired of being at home and are looking forward to going to headquarters full time.