Twitter allows staff to work from home permanently
Twitter has told employees they can work from home “forever” as the social media firm adapts to new working conditions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a company-wide email yesterday chief executive Jack Dorsey said Twitter had been one of the first adopters of the flexible working model and would allow staff to continue to work from home indefinitely.
However, Twitter said employees would be able to return to its offices once they reopen, which is unlikely to be before September.
In a blog post published yesterday Twitter HR chief Jennifer Christie said the social media firm was “uniquely positioned” to allow its staff to work from home.
“The past few months have proven we can make that work,” she 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.”
Twitter said that its office reopenings “won’t be a snap back to the way it was before”, but “careful, intentional, office by office and gradual”.
In addition, the company has scrapped all business travel before September “with very few exceptions” all in-person events for the rest of the year. It said it will assess 2021 events later in the year.
Twitter has scaled back its hiring plans and reduced its planned expense growth — previously slated at 20 per cent — as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The company has also said plans to build a new data centre may be pushed back due to supply chain interruptions and the need to save cash.
The social media platform shrugged off a sharp decline in the advertising market to post a rise in revenue in the first quarter, spurred on by a 24 per cent rise in users to 166m.
However, the firm said it would not issue guidance for the second quarter due to “unprecedented uncertainty and rapidly shifting market conditions”.