Work

Twitter will let employees work from home forever. Forever.

Wednesday, May 13, 2020 by Snacks
_1 year into Permanent WFH_

1 year into Permanent WFH

Never wear real pants again... Twitter just told employees they'll be allowed to work from home forever. Jobs that require being physically present will still have to come in, but other than that, WFH is officially a forever thing. Google and Facebook and a bunch of others have already made WFH optional until 2021 — but "forever" takes it to a whole new level:

  • Employees: Don't have to pay for a $3K 1-bedroom to work driving distance from Twitter HQ in SF. CEO Jack Dorsey can work from his 10-day silent vipassana meditations in Myanmar.
  • Company: Twitter pays less rent for office space if it scales down (and less on food/snacks/supplies). It can also potentially pay workers less if they're not paying rent in an expensive city.
  • Cities: Could alleviate housing crunches and traffic congestion.

But there are a lot of unknowns... Do employees really want to work from home forever? Will this hurt productivity, collaboration, and collegial relationships? Will Twitter lose talent/applicants to companies with cool, social offices if people don't want a remote office culture? WFH is also almost entirely dependent on services like Slack, which had some down time yesterday.

THE TAKEAWAY

This could be the start of a mega-trend... But its effects aren't so clear. Permanent WFH hasn’t been tested long-term, so we really don't know how it might affect company/employee success. Guess Twitter can be the guinea pig, if enough employees choose to do it (permanent work from home will be optional at Twitter, not mandatory).

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