Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Sunday, Jun 01, 2025

The Coronavirus Is Forcing Techies To Work From Home. Some May Never Go Back To The Office.

The Coronavirus Is Forcing Techies To Work From Home. Some May Never Go Back To The Office.

Companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Twitter are encouraging workers to stay home.
As the coronavirus spreads in the United States and tech companies ask their workforces to do their jobs from home, some in the industry are looking at the outbreak as a test case for the long-gestating but never-arriving moment when working remotely will broadly replace working in person.

“We’ll never probably be the same,” Jennifer Christie, Twitter’s head of human resources, told BuzzFeed News of the company’s workplace practices. “People who were reticent to work remotely will find that they really thrive that way. Managers who didn’t think they could manage teams that were remote will have a different perspective. I do think we won’t go back.”

Twitter -whose CEO, Jack Dorsey, said he wanted to move toward a distributed workforce in the most recent earnings call -is one of a number of companies asking employees to work from home as the coronavirus hits the US.

Square, which Dorsey also runs, asked the same of its employees this week. Job board website Indeed has mandated it. Amazon asked employees to test VPNs, anticipating they might need to work from home as well. And some tech workers are starting to clock in from home before their companies roll out an official policy of having most or all of their employees work from home or outside a central office.

“We've gotten a lot of positive reactions to going in this direction in terms of putting our safety of our employees first,” Christie said, “and so some other companies might be willing to take a leap.”

As of Wednesday, the number of reported coronavirus cases in the US had risen to 153 and the death toll to 11.

After Twitter announced its work-from-home policy, some employees remained at the office, but at their discretion. For the most part, the company now has an entirely distributed workforce. On Tuesday, Twitter held its monthly all-hands meeting entirely online -via Google Hangouts and Slack -with Dorsey dialing in from an undisclosed location.

With no in-person component involved, the Q&A portion of Twitter’s all-hands was livelier than usual. “The number of questions that came in, the people that were responding on Slack - it just was so much more engaged,” Christie said. “We’ve got a lot of introverts in the company. It’s also a little bit of...not a level playing field. You have people in San Francisco, and then people dialing in from around the world who feel like they’re not quite having the same experience. It was much more level setting.”

The push for working remotely wasn’t limited to Twitter. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, major Bay Area employers, including Microsoft and JPMorgan, were also encouraging workers to stay home. Google told most of its workers at its Dublin, Ireland, offices to stay home after a coronavirus case was reported there.

Ed Zitron, a tech PR veteran, told BuzzFeed News he’d welcome a move to a virtual workplace. “There are no positives in the case of the coronavirus, but I’m definitely seeing a reevaluation of whether meeting in person is truly necessary. You can really see people moving away from having in-persons that they know deep inside are just for the comfort of seeing someone for some reason,” he said. “I just wish it didn’t take a global pandemic to make people rethink the necessity of in-person meetings. That’s the valley for you, I guess.”

One tech worker in New York, who has social anxiety, said he started working from home ahead of any company policy, looking at this virus as a chance to prove he can do his work outside of the office. “I'm probably jumping the gun, but since most of my job -really pretty much all of my job -can be done remote, I'm taking the opportunity to prove that,” he said.

Still, workers whose jobs cannot be performed remotely won’t have an easy transition as the virus takes hold in the US. Twitter, for instance, has facilities and cafeteria workers whose jobs require them to be in the office. The company will continue to pay these people even if they have to work on a reduced schedule, Christie said. “We're not going to put people out and not not pay them.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
OPEC+ Agrees to Increase Oil Output for Third Consecutive Month
Turkey Detains Istanbul Officials Amid Anti-Corruption Crackdown
Meta and Anduril Collaborate on AI-Driven Military Augmented Reality Systems
EU Central Bank Pushes to Replace US Dollar with Euro as World’s Main Currency
European and Arab Ministers Convene in Madrid to Address Gaza Conflict
U.S. Health Secretary Ends Select COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendations
Trump Warns Putin Is 'Playing with Fire' Amid Escalating Ukraine Conflict
India and Pakistan Engage Trump-Linked Lobbyists to Influence U.S. Policy
U.S. Halts New Student Visa Interviews Amid Enhanced Security Measures
Trump Administration Cancels $100 Million in Federal Contracts with Harvard
SpaceX Starship Test Flight Ends in Failure, Mars Mission Timeline Uncertain
King Charles Affirms Canadian Sovereignty Amid U.S. Statehood Pressure
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Founder Warns Against Trusting Regime in Nuclear Talks
UAE Offers Free ChatGPT Plus Subscriptions to Citizens
Lebanon Initiates Plan to Disarm Palestinian Factions
Iran and U.S. Make Limited Progress in Nuclear Talks
The Daily Debate: The Fall of the Dollar — Strategic Reset or Economic Self-Destruction?
Trump Administration's Tariff Policies and Dollar Strategy Spark Global Economic Debate
OpenAI Acquires Jony Ive’s Startup for $6.5 Billion to Build a Revolutionary “Third Core Device”
Turkey Weighs Citizens in Public as Erdoğan Launches National Slimming Campaign
Saudi-Spanish Business Forum Commences in Riyadh
Saudi Arabia and Spain Sign MoU to Boost SME Sectors
UK Suspends Trade Talks with Israel Amid Gaza Offensive
Iran and U.S. Set for Fifth Round of Nuclear Talks Amid Rising Tensions
Russia Expands Military Presence Near Finland Amid Rising Tensions
Indian Scholar Arrested in Crackdown Over Pakistan Conflict Commentary
Israel Eases Gaza Blockade Amid Internal Dispute Over Military Strategy
President Biden’s announcement of advanced prostate cancer sparked public sympathy—but behind closed doors, Democrats are in panic
A Chinese company made solar tiles that look way nicer than regular panels!
Indian jet shootdown: the all-robot legion behind China’s PL-15E missiles
The Chinese Dragon: The True Winner in the India-Pakistan Clash
Australia's Venomous Creatures Contribute to Life-Saving Antivenom Programme
The Spanish Were Right: Long Working Hours Harm Brain Function
Did Former FBI Director Call for Violence Against Trump? Instagram Post Sparks Uproar
US and UAE Partner to Develop Massive AI Data Center Complex
Apple's $95 Million Siri Settlement: Eligible Users Have Until July 2 to File Claims
US and UAE Reach Preliminary Agreement on Nvidia AI Chip Imports
President Trump and Elon Musk Welcomed by Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim with Cybertruck Convoy
Strong Warning Issued: Do Not Use General Chatbots for Medical, Legal, or Educational Guidance
Saudi Arabia Emerges as Global Tech Magnet with U.S. Backing and Trump’s Visit
This was President's departure from Saudi Arabia. The Crown Prince personally escorted him back to the airport.
NVIDIA and Saudi Arabia Launch Strategic Partnership to Establish AI Centers
Trump Meets Syrian President Ahmad al-Shara in Historic Encounter
Trump takes a blow torch to the neocons and interventionists while speaking to the Saudis
US and Saudi Arabia Sign Landmark Agreements Across Multiple Sectors
Why Saudi Arabia Rolled Out a Purple Carpet for Donald Trump Instead of Red
Elon Musk Joins Trump Meeting in Saudi Arabia
Trump says it would be 'stupid' not to accept gift of Qatari plane
Quantum Computing Threatens Bitcoin Security
Michael Jordan to Serve as Analyst for NBA Games
×