FACEBOOK, GOOGLE RACE TO BE LAST TO RETURN TO OFFICE
Even as President Trump has said “we have to get our country open again,” much of corporate America is in no rush to return employees to their campuses and skyscrapers. The companies are racing not to be the first back, but the last.
An increasing number of them, which mostly have white-collar employees, have recently extended work-fromhome policies far beyond the shelter-in-place timelines mandated by state and local authorities.
Google and Facebook employees were told Thursday that they could stay home until next year. Capital One informed 40,000 workers that they will be out through Labor Day and possibly longer. Amazon is saying October. Nationwide Insurance is moving more aggressively than other firms, shuttering five offices around the country and having its 4,000 employees telecommute permanently.
The moves reflect the reality that no one is sure how the coronavirus pandemic will evolve. While deaths from the virus in hot zones like New York City have come down, new outbreaks have emerged elsewhere. Almost every day, there are at least 20,000 new cases in the U.S., bringing the country’s total to more than 1.2 million.
But even after the coronavirus no longer requires it, working from home is likely to retain a significant presence in corporate life. It will affect the shape of cities and the commercial real-estate industry, and change the culture at companies that for years have been building elaborate temples for their workers.
For many companies, which started having employees work from home in March, prolonging the policy is not just a safety measure. It is a pragmatic approach that helps workers with young children plan for a difficult summer, and gives management time to reconfigure open-office plans into something safer.
Some companies said there is another reason: Working from home is working out well.
“Working from home is a great thing for the company and for the employees, who don’t want to get back in cars and commute for two hours. That’s lost productivity,” said Joan Burke, the chief people officer of Docusign, a San Francisco tech company that enables electronic agreements. “I see it happening way more often in the future.”
Docusign recently announced a September return but said it could easily be later. California is in lockdown until May 31, its governor, Gavin Newsom, has said.
It is no coincidence that tech companies are in the front ranks of the stay-athome movement. Their software promotes working at a distance. Tattoo parlours, bars and hairdressing salons, all of which need face-to-face interaction with customers, have no such luxury. Before the coronavirus struck, 8 percent of all wage and salaried employees worked from home at least one day a week, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics; about 2 percent worked from home full time. In a matter of days, the pandemic pushed telecommuting from marginal to mandatory in many parts of the country.