Remote Work
Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser told staff that she is banning internal video calls on Fridays, encouraging workers to set boundaries for a healthier work-life balance and instituting a firm-wide holiday called Citi Reset Day as Covid pandemic fatigue takes a toll on employees.
"When our work regularly spills over into nights, very early mornings and weekends, it can prevent us from recharging fully, and that isn't good for you nor, ultimately, for Citi," Fraser said.
Cloud-based software company Salesforce has announced a new remote work system that will allow for more flexible schedules and options, joining other tech companies like Facebook and Microsoft to offer remote-work policies.
"As we enter a new year, we must continue to go forward with agility, creativity and a beginner’s mind — and that includes how we cultivate our culture. An immersive workspace is no longer limited to a desk in our Towers; the 9-to-5 workday is dead; and the employee experience is about more than ping-pong tables and snacks," so Salesforce in their statement published to the company blog.
Salesforce is introducing three different categories of work: flex (1-3 days per week for team collaboration, customer meetings, and presentations when it's safe to return to the office), fully remote (for employees who don’t live near an office or have roles that don’t require an office) and office-based (for a small population of their team who will work from an office location 4-5 days per week if they’re in roles that require it).
Oracle Corporation has moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas. Oracle became the latest technology company to leave California in the face of the state's higher taxes, steeper cost of living and a broader shift to remote work.
"We believe these moves best position Oracle for growth and provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work," spokesperson Deborah Hellinger told CNN Business.
In the ongoing discussion inside of the grand coalition about employees' right to home office, German minister of labour and social affairs, Hubertus Heil from the Social Democratic Party said that he no longer demands an enforceable right to 24 days of home office for every employee working in a position in which working from home is possible. Heil says, he tries to meet the coalition partner, the conservative Union halfway with this waiver and hopes for their support for his draft "Mobile Labour Law". The CDU/CSU rejects any legal reglementation of home office.
The We Company, once known as WeWork, will revert its name back to WeWork.
"We want to be strategic. We want to be innovative. We want to be impactful. We want to be WeWork," so the new CEO of the once and future WeWork, Sandeep Mathrani in the internal memo seen by Reuters.
The "We" brand was first introduced in January 2019 as the parent company of shared office provider WeWork to broaden its brand from shared office spaces to a lifestyle company.
Around 2.5 million public employees will be potentially able to work from home due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
The agreement reached by the Government and the main representatives of this group of workers (CSIF, CC OO and UGT) to update the Basic Statute of the Public Employee (EBEP) was published this Wednesday in the Official State Gazette (BOE).
The autonomous communities now have six months for the adaption of the new regulations.
Salesforce announced it is extending the work from home policy to all 49,000 employees until at least July 31. Previously, the company guideline allowed work from home until the end of 2020.
The company also announced it is expanding benefits, offering employees an additional $250 to purchase office supplies to work from home and giving parents six additional weeks of paid time off.
Facebook has announced that it is extending its work from home policy until July of 2021 for all of its 48,000 employees. Facebook is the latest tech giant to offer prolonged remote work amid the pandemic, following Google and Twitter.
"Based on guidance from health and government experts, as well as decisions drawn from our internal discussions about these matters, we are allowing employees to continue voluntarily working from home until July 2021. In addition, we are giving employees an additional $1,000 for home office needs," so Facebook spokesperson Nneka Norville.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Google plans to keep its 200,000+ employees working remotely until at least July 2021. Google would be the first technology company to extend the Covid-19 remote work measures into the next year.
A study by the University of Chicago evaluating the "economic impact of 'social distancing' measures" found that "37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home". It further found that remote jobs pay more while "lower-income economies have a lower share".
Microsoft announced Wednesday new features to improve the Microsoft Teams experience and beat Zoom, including the new Together Mode and the support to up to 1,000 people in a call.
Together Mode, digitally place up to 50 participants in a shared background, so it emulates the experience of sitting in the same room while meeting remotely.
Microsoft Teams also support for up to 1,000 participants in meetings, soon allow up to 20,000 viewers in presentations and seminars.
The video call and conferencing provider Zoom rolled back the decision to excluding encryption for free users. Zoom official announcement about the new release states: "This will enable us to offer E2EE as an advanced add-on feature for all of our users around the globe – free and paid."
During a live-streamed talk, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company will allow permanent remote work for many of its existing 45,000 employees and "aggressively open up" remote hiring..
Zuckerberg expects that about 50% of Facebook's workforce will work remotely within the next five to 10 years.
According to Mastercard about 90% of its employees are currently working remotely, despite most offices being open for work. The chief executive Ajay Banga said that "I'm not planning on getting back to a pre-Covid growth scenario for another year. I think that could be sometime next year when a vaccine is readily available and readily distributed." All employees can "make the decision on when they feel comfortable returning to an office. They know their personal circumstances and needs".
In an email to the employees of Twitter the CEO Jack Dorsey has announced that he doesn't think the company will go back to the presence work culture it had before and move up the timeline to a fully "distributed" way of work. Only jobs that require physical presence will be exempt from this.
Google's Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai announced today the company has asked employees to take a day off on May 22. The announcement, via a memo sent to employees, stated: “I know many of us have been running hard non-stop for weeks now and may be experiencing some burnout,”.
The company said it would begin reopening more offices globally as early as June, but most employees would likely work from home until the end of 2020.
Reporter Patrick Klepek announced on Twitter that he obtained a memo stating that all PlayStation employees are set to work from home until April 30. Employees will be paid "regardless of ability to perform remote work due to job function or responsibilities". Additionally, employees will receive a one-time payment of $1,000 to purchase any equipment needed to continue their work remotely.