According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, up to half of their workforce could work from home within five to 10 years.
May 21, Thursday, Facebook announced its plan to allow employees to do a permanent work change. The move is a response to the swift spread of the COVID-19 pandemic that continuously reshapes the economy. On the same day, the company began to make most of its job openings in the US open for remote works. While later this year, it will begin accepting permanent remote work applications from its employees.
Zuckerberg noted that the company aims to become the most forward-leaning one when it comes to remote work. He added that they had to do the shift in a thoughtful and responsible way. For this reason, Facebook will set measures before finally shifting from office to remote work. Zuckerberg also thinks that they could get almost half of their employees to work from home within five to ten years.
It’s a known fact that Facebook is the largest social media network all over the globe. In fact, its company has 70 offices globally with a total of 48,000 employees working for them. This makes them the largest company to move from office to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tech Giants Will Also Implement Remote Work For Their Employees
Similarly, Twitter announced earlier this month its intent to let its employees work from home. Coinbase also released the same announcement on May 20, Wednesday. Tobi Lütke, the CEO of Shopify, also publicized that the company will immediately begin to allow its workforce to permanently work remotely. Lastly, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, announced that they are planning to add remote work flexibility apart from allowing the majority of their employees to stay at home until the end of this year. Facebook is the best remote work choice if you will buy Facebook likes with real reviews.
Collectively, the idea of working remotely came from Silicon Valley’s decades-long conventional wisdom. This is where the largest companies were built with the intent to physically collaborate in close proximity.
Recently, the new employees of Facebook received a $15,000 payment for agreeing to live within 10 miles from their office. But now that Facebook will implement working remotely, many of its employees will be able to work wherever they prefer. However, the company will reduce the payment for workers who will move into less expensive places.
The shift of Facebook into remote work can be considered as a necessity. The company decided to reopen some of its headquarters on July 6. And along with this decision is the plan to reduce the occupancy of its offices to 25 percent than the normal. However, the additional safety requirements for going back into the offices, such as mandatory protective face masks and temperature checks, will likely prevent most of Facebook’s employees from reporting into their offices.
However, after conducting a survey of his employees as well as talking to other companies that allow their employees to work remotely, Zuckerberg noted that he was convinced by the benefits that a distributed workforce could bring. The shift will allow Facebook to accept many more applicants. Zuckerberg also added that it can bring a positive effect on the environment.
Facebook invested billions in order to create a state of the art tools for communication that is used by almost everyone nowadays. Moreover, the decision to allow their employees to work remotely forces the, to rely on the communication tools that created in order to get their jobs done. In addition, the move allows then to be the guinea pigs for their new products like virtual reality, augmented reality, as well as their Portal smart display. The remote work will also give them the opportunity to test out the company’s Workplace collaboration tool. It will also force the company to improve its tools rapidly out of its employees’ necessity since half of its workforce will rely on the said products to get things done.
Facebook’s Move Also Has Some Risks
According to Zuckerberg, virtual and augmented reality is focused on providing people with remote presence. This means that if you have long been using AR and VR as well as on video chat, you have to believe you are helping individuals to be able to do anything they want regardless of where they are. Furthermore, Zuckerberg thinks that this suggests a worldview that would result in permitting people to do more remote works over time.
However, the movie also carries some risks. Ever since March, Facebook employees, as well as employees from other large tech companies, have been working on plans that were planned by employees who have been collaborating together on campus. But the question that remains unanswered is whether companies can stay as productive and as creative as they were now that they cannot brainstorm around the same conference table.
Furthermore, Zuckerberg said that he is expecting a slow move towards working remotely. However, the move will begin by making the open roles of the company available for remote workers. Still, he is open to the possibility that some employees will prefer working in the company office, most especially younger employees.
One more effort in order to preserve team camaraderie is to regularly invite employees for on sites. The on sites campus version of offsite retreats are a common thing to do among businesses before the pandemic forced them to change work setups.
Still, a lot of people still questions Facebook’s shift to remote work. Back then, Facebook lures new employees with lavish perks as well as Frank Gehry’s campus design. However, now that employees are going to work from home, what will Facebook offer them? How will employees have diversity and inclusion now that most of them work remotely?
To answer these all, Zuckerberg said that he thinks today’s tools are fairly transactional, which serves as the ecosystem’s weakness. While email and messaging are perfect for exchanging thoughts, it does not serve a purpose for hanging out. Meaning, remote work is like having a team that only spends unstructured time together.
