In a company-wide email Tuesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced some of the company employees would be able to work from home permanently after the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown ends. “Opening offices will be our decision, when and if our employees come back, will be theirs,” Twitter stated in a blog post.
Attempting to trend the hashtag #LoveWhereYouWork, Twitter’s latest move staunchly positions itself on one side of the work-from-home debate that has been raging since the Covid19 pandemic began, when all formal work operations moved to employees’ homes. “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,” Twitter stated, adding it was one of the first companies to embrace a work-from-home model at the beginning of the pandemic — Twitter had made work-from-home compulsory for all employees by March 11. It added, “The past few months have proven we can make that work.”
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If an employee’s position and role are suited to a work-from-home setup, then Twitter “will make that happen.” For those whose work cannot be done from home, Twitter stated office operations will resume in a “careful, intentional, office by office and gradual” manner.
Twitter’s announcement, aimed at protecting the health of its employees, moves the work-from-home debate away from productivity and shifts it toward well-being. Digital companies around the world will increasingly face this dilemma, even after mandated Covid19 lockdowns end around the world. If going to the office means exposing oneself to an infectious virus — keeping in mind a mass-produced, widely accessible vaccine doesn’t seem to be in our near future — then should employees just stay home? As we debate whether work culture will change or not in the coming years, with experts portending a “new normal” in the foreseeable future, Twitter’s latest announcement might just determine what that outcome looks like.
