Lessons from the Valley: Twitter allows work from home indefinitely

While Twitter has long offered work-from-home arrangements to its workforce, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen a significant expansion of that model, with more employees conducting more critical functions remotely. In an internal email sent yesterday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced that employees looking to continue working from home may do so indefinitely.

“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 representatives confirmed in an email to TechCrunch.

“The past few months have proven we can make that work,” they said. “So if our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen. If not, our offices will be their warm and welcoming selves, with some additional precautions, when we feel it’s safe to return.”

Jennifer Christie, Twitter’s chief human resources officer, outlines the company’s plans:

Opening offices will be our decision; when and if our employees come back, will be theirs.

With very few exceptions, offices won’t open before September. When we do decide to open offices, it also won’t be a snap back to the way it was before. It will be careful, intentional, office by office and gradual.

There will also be no business travel before September, with very few exceptions, and no in-person company events for the rest of 2020. We will assess 2021 events later this year.

Twitter’s move is in line with similar setups being extended by other major companies like Google and Facebook, all towards building more resilient systems for the current pandemic. Beyond COVID-19 and in the years to come, these may lead to new opportunities for global tech workers interested in joining top firms but unable or unwilling to relocate to expensive US cities.