Salesforce kicks off staged reopening
Business-software giant bringing 100 workers into Bay Area headquarters
A hundred vaccinated employees of business-software giant Salesforce returned to its San Francisco headquarters office Monday in part of a three-stage reopening process as the COVID pandemic comes under control, the firm said.
Salesforce said in April that although it was extending employees’ option to work remotely until year’s end — after earlier saying they could work from home until at least the end of July — it would bring workers back to offices on a voluntary basis starting this month.
On Monday, the company said in a news release that it was “welcoming 100 fully vaccinated employees back to the office today.” The “volunteer vaccinated cohorts” model will be used at other Salesforce offices,
with groups of 100 or fewer workers coming in on designated floors, the firm has said.
Monday’s reopening, and the openings of other Salesforce offices to vaccinated workers, will include coronavirus testing, the firm said. Lobbies, elevators and confer
ence rooms have been re-designed, with Plexiglas between desks and air purifiers in conference rooms, the company has said.
In the second stage, Salesforce will gradually reopen offices from 20% to 75% capacity, depending on
COVID data and local guidance, it said. “In this stage, we will welcome both vaccinated and non-vaccinated employees, and we will continue to follow safety protocols and provide testing where possible,” Salesforce said in an earlier news release.
Offices will “fully reopen” when the coronavirus threat is low enough, Salesforce said. The company has not detailed its expectations for workers’ presence in offices, but has announced a hybrid office/ remote “Success from Anywhere” program that it said means, “everyone can finally work where, when, and how they’ll make the most impact.”
It said last month it had opened 22 offices around the world under that hybrid program, and cited lessons learned from Sydney, Australia, where employees preferred to start the work week from home, with Thursday the most popular day to be in the office.
“More flexibility leads to more productivity and balance,” the company said. “Employees are 16% more likely to agree they are more productive at home, and 13% more likely to agree that their teams are more productive at home than in the office.” Salesforce said it also noted that under the hybrid program, more than 60% of collaboration spaces in offices were used, but employees only used 24% of desk space. However, the company added, “employees working in the office were 19% more likely to have connected socially with a colleague compared to those working from home, leading to a stronger sense of belonging.”
Salesforce’s reopening comes after other major Bay Area tech firms have started bringing workers back to offices.
Ride-hailing firm Uber opened its new San Francisco headquarters building March 29, after earlier extending its remote-work option until Sept. 13. Uber said it would open its new headquarters at 20% capacity on a voluntary basis. Facebook has said it plans to start opening Bay Area offices this month on a rolling basis depending on local COVID data. Twitter has said many workers can choose to work remotely forever.
Google said earlier this month that most employees could keep working from home until September, but that it will pull back from largely remote operations and turn toward campusbased employment with many workers expected on-site at least a few days a week. Workers whose daily presence at company facilities is not essential will be put on a hybrid schedule, spending about three days in the office and two days “wherever they work best,” company CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post, adding that office time will be focused on collaboration. Pichai did not provide specific dates for when changes will take place, but said employees would get more information by the middle of next month.