Parag Agrawal (Twitter)
Social media giant Twitter has announced it will reinstate business travel immediately and reopen its offices from March 15, though employees will still be able to work remotely should they choose.
In a statement posted on Twitter, CEO Parag Agrawal said the company was ready to fully open up business travel and all its offices around the world. “Business travel is back effective immediately, and office openings will start on March 15,” he wrote.
However, Agrawal stressed that Twitter would be supporting a hybrid work model, stating the company was committed to offering “truly flexible work.”
“The decisions about where you work, whether you feel safe travelling for business, and what events you attend, should be yours,” the statement read.
This aligns with former CEO Jack Dorsey’s October 2020 promise that employees can work from home permanently, as first reported by Buzzfeed News.
Agrawal did caution that “distributed working will be much, much harder,” and that employees must learn how to adapt to “challenges in the coming months,” such as hybrid meetings where some employees are in the office and others are remote.
Tech returns to the office
Twitter is not the first major tech company to announce it would be reopening its offices. On February 28, Microsoft reopened its headquarters in Redmond, Washington and other locations around the world.
Google also told employees on Wednesday that it would begin requiring its employees in various US locations to return to the office in person for at least three days a week starting April 4, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.
In December 2021, Meta said it was delaying its plan to reopen US offices until the new year. This was pushed back again to March 2022, but workers will only be allowed to return if they show proof of a booster vaccination.
“We understand that the continued uncertainty makes this a difficult time to make decisions about where to work, so we’re giving more time to choose what works best for them,” Janelle Gale, Meta’s vice president of human resources, told CNBC. Meta employees that wish to continue working remotely after March 28 will need to request a deferral, which will last between three and five months.
