Salesforce HQ to reopen in May for the vaccinated

Salesforce will reopen its San Francisco headquarters in midMay, starting with employees who have been vaccinated, the company said Monday.

The tech company, which is the city’s largest private employer, is taking a different approach than other businesses by requiring proof of vaccination for its first volunteers returning to offices. It appears to be the first major Bay Area company to implement that requirement to start. Other companies such as Facebook and Google haven’t required vaccinations as they reopen offices this month.

Salesforce Tower will reopen along with Palo

Alto and Irvine offices in May, followed by other U.S. locations. Vaccinated employees will be grouped into separate “cohorts” of 100 or fewer people to start. Some facilities in other regions, predominantly in Asia, have already reopened.

As health trends improve, the company plans to allow unvaccinated workers to return starting at 20% overall capacity and rising to 75%. When new local coronavirus cases fall below 1 per 1,000 people and a there is a less than 1% positivity rate, an office will fully reopen. There are no firm dates for these changes, and the company is also extending its fully remote option for employees until the end of 2021.

The company will have onsite coronavirus testing and temperature checks where possible, plexiglass barriers between desks and increased cleaning.

The eventual return of more than 10,000 Salesforce workers in San Francisco is expected to bolster downtown’s economy, but the company is planning major changes. Most employees want to stay home at least one or two days a week, and Salesforce is eliminating designated desks and expanding collaboration areas.

“It’s really a catalyst to create the best employee experience,” Brent Hyder, Salesforce’s chief people officer, told The Chronicle. “We have an opportunity to create an even better workplace for everyone.”

In the company’s Sydney office, which reopened in August and is at full capacity, most employees want to stay home at the beginning of the week. Wednesday and Thursday are the most popular times for workers to start coming in. Only 24% of individual desk space is typically used, while 64% of common areas like lounges and conference rooms are used.

“Thursday is our new Monday, for sure,” Hyder said.

Before the pandemic, around 18% of the company’s roughly 50,000 workers were fully remote, and Hyder expects that number to rise only slightly, to around 20%. The majority of workers will have a flexible combination of office and home work.

“Our productivity rates have never been higher,” Hyder said, but added that employees are “growing weary. They want to see each other.”

Robert Siegel, a Stanford professor of microbiology and immunology, expects more private companies to follow suit and require vaccinations for returning workers. He believes some are hesitating to issue policies and seeing whether there’s pushback.

“To me, it makes sense for a private company,” he said. “People will feel a lot more confident.”

The coronavirus’ prevalence in the Bay Area means it remains a significant risk for unvaccinated people, Siegel said. The race is now keeping the rate of new cases low enough before potential vaccineresistant variants emerge, Siegel said: “Variants are a wild card.”

Like other tech giants, Salesforce plans a hiring spree this year that will exceed 15,000 people, and the new flexibility will create “markets of talent that I didn’t have before,” Hyder said.

The pandemic has increased demand for the company’s digital marketing and sales products. In its most recent quarter, revenue jumped 20% to a record $5.82 billion. Other tech giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon are also seeing surging demand as people relied on digital communications and online shopping during shelterinplace orders.

Salesforce is also set to grow larger with its pending acquisition of messaging service Slack, which is also headquartered in San Francisco.

Despite the boom in business, remote work has led to cuts to Salesforce’s office space in San Francisco’s Transbay district. It is listing part of the Salesforce East tower for sublease and also canceled a major lease at an unbuilt tower at 542550 Howard St.

Even as some growth shifts to other regions, Hyder said the company remains committed to San Francisco. It said Monday that it is donating $1.5 million to three local organizations helping homeless people: Compass Family Services, Catholic Charities and Homeless Prenatal Program.

“We’re excited to be able to continue reopening, and the return of Salesforce employees is a major step forward for our economy and our downtown area. San Francisco is ready to bounce back from this pandemic stronger than ever because of the work we’ve done to keep each other safe and healthy over the past year, and I can’t wait to see our downtown streets and offices come alive again in the coming months,” Mayor London Breed said in a statement.

Hyder said that positive vaccination trends — California is set to allow everyone 16 and older to get a shot starting Thursday — and falling local cases should allow the company to reopen additional U.S. offices soon.

“We continue to be optimistic,” he said. “We have confidence where this is going.”