Twitter has been named the first large company to permanently recognize employee homework after the end of Corona 19. Since then, Facebook has also acknowledged that some employees will continue to work from home in the form of following this, and announced that there is a possibility that half of all employees will work from home by 2030.
In addition, Shopify, an e-commerce platform company that overthrew Amazon, said it allows employees to continue working from home permanently.
Shopify has around 5,000 employees and contractors, but allowed all of them to continue working from home after the city blockade and social distancing strategy from Corona 19 was over. Shopify is the first to allow permanent employees to work from home by a Canadian-based conglomerate.
Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke said that Shopify will be shutting down offices in almost every way for the remainder of 2020 to redesign its interior spaces digitally and to encourage working from home in the future. In addition, Shopify will limit office capacity to around 20-25%.
He said he intends to encourage working from home by saying that the majority of employees are looking forward to working from home in the future. He also said that it is important to adapt to the new reality as soon as possible, and that it is important to respond quickly to the way of work in the environment that is disrupted by Corona 19.
Shopify is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada and has a market value of $85 billion. It is attracting attention as a platform with diversity to beat Amazon, which dominated e-commerce. Shopify has offices in more than 16 countries around the world, and the company plans to redesign each office conference room, elevator, and employee workspace after the end of Corona 19. The company plans to avoid congestion and allow employees to get together as if they were in the office through virtual tiles or video screens, so the existing conference room could become unnecessary.
Shopify has announced that it will open a new office in Toronto by May 2022, 2019. This new office was expected to have a total floor area of 23,600m 2 for some of the offices as part of plans to increase Shopify staff. Shopify plans to reduce office space, but the new office and regional offices in Ottawa, Waterloo, Montreal and Vancouver will continue to operate.
In accordance with the corona 19 epidemic, blockades in cities around the world have resulted in numerous remote work workers. As previously stated, Facebook announced that it plans to introduce remote work from a long-term perspective even after Corona 19 is over. CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained how the transition to RemoteWork could be done, saying there are a number of advantages and challenges.
On May 21 (local time), he announced that he would start recruiting and hiring remote workers in the United States through live streaming to employees. He explained that in late 2020, out of 48,000 Facebook employees around the world, they plan to switch to Remote Work on demand. Zuckerberg says that in the next few decades, most of Facebook will be able to remotework.
He says that Facebook will be the world’s most remote work-positive company, and that the transition to remote work is prudent, requires accountability, and needs to be done carefully, but that it may take up to 10 years in the next 5 to 10 years. 50% added that they expect to be able to do remote work permanently.
As before, Facebook has started remote hiring, which does not use employment criteria as a standard. In the employee survey, 40% of the total was active in remote work, so it is said that the company plans to make it possible for existing employees to respond to remote work requirements. Currently, remote work is possible until the end of 2020 due to Corona 19, but it is expected that continuous remote work will be possible from a long-term perspective. In order to realize this, it will focus on hiring experienced employees, not new graduates who need to be trained on the way to work.
However, there are many challenges in the forced remote work caused by the Corona 19 epidemic. Lack of communication between employees, brainstorming, and inability to increase creativity are considered challenges. Since Facebook is focusing on the AR and VR fields, it is believed that it is important to establish a tool that enables users to experience the same as being together in a remote environment in the future.
Zuckerberg also said that in reviewing the remote work policy, when I spoke to a company that has already adopted Remote Work, he heard an interesting story about not hiring new employees. Since Facebook employs thousands of new employees every year, how to balance the two is also a challenge. He says it will be an interesting experiment on how graduates will be able to work with remote work.
There is also an advantage to promote with remote work. Employees aren’t restricted to urban areas and can be recruited to absorb more talent. It can also lead to diversity in hiring employees from different backgrounds who live in different communities. Related information can be found here .