Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to allow half of his employees to permanently work from home.
Both leaders and employees are thinking of the future of the world’s workforce when the COVID-19 pandemic is already over. With a lot of employees being left with no choice but to work from their homes during pandemic-brought lockdowns, a lot of individuals are wondering what the new normal would look like once lockdowns are lifted. Some leaders decided to give more flexible work schedule to their employees.
With the pandemic adversely affecting businesses, Mark Zuckerberg decided to allow Facebook employees to work from their homes for as long as they want. He also shared what his plans for Facebook are as well as the benefits and challenges that working remotely could bring his employees.
Facebook has more than 48,000 employees. Zuckerberg announced in a Facebook post that half of them could work remotely in the near future. Buying Facebook likes
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In the Facebook post, the Facebook CEO said that in the next five to 10 years, he thinks that 50 percent of the company’s employees could work remotely for a permanent time. However, the shift in work structure would be done in a measured way. He also thinks that Facebook will be the most forward-leaning company when it comes to allowing employees to work remotely. Furthermore, Facebook is now working on a plan in order to set the new work structure in motion. Lastly, he emphasized that there are still a lot of questions about how remote work would work. For this reason, they need to keep learning and improving as they implement the new work structure.
Experiences of their Employees Matter, Facebook CEO Says
As a part of learning as they go, Facebook had a recent survey for its employees regarding their experience in working remotely. The survey aims to include employees in the company’s decisions in the future. The said survey would also help employees to address their concerns and for the company to help them resolve those.
Zuckerberg noted that over half of their workforce said that they are as productive as they are in the office. In addition, about 40 percent of them showed interest in working remotely for full time. Still, more than 50 percent of Facebook’s workforce wants to go back to the office as soon as possible.
On the other hand, 75 percent of the people who want to work remotely said that they plan to move into another place. Of the 75 percent, 38 percent said that they will choose a big city to move into while the remaining percentage said that they would live somewhere else.
However, the survey showed that not all Facebook employees are positively affected by the remote work. Employees who have children as well as those who live on their own have their struggles. It is quite difficult to balance life and work now that there is no clear boundary between home and work. In addition, Zuckerberg mentioned that he is concerned about social bonds between colleagues, especially the newly hired ones, becoming weaker due to the remote work structure. Another unanswered question is whether a team would be less creative when they work separately. Furthermore, Zuckerberg thinks that he and most of his team would like to see each other in person as soon as possible.
Shifting Into A Remote Work Structure
Zuckerberg emphasized that they are aware that they will be confronted with questions as they implement working remotely. According to him, they will be able to answer these questions over time and through their experience. He also acknowledges the possibility of his company to make a more diverse workforce with the help of remote recruiting.
Furthermore, the Facebook CEO said that the remote work structure would allow them to hire employees outside the traditional tech hubs in huge cities. According to him, this would help them to widely spread economic opportunities around the country and the world while building a more diverse company.
Remote work will also have a positive effect to the environment because there will be a reduce to the number of people who are commuting. And since there are many employees who feel more productive when working outside the office, it would help them serve the community better. A remote work structure would also help Facebook in advancing some of the future technologies that they are developing.
On the other hand, Facebook began making some accommodations for employees who want to return to offices so they can work safely. The company will also begin allowing employees who live within four hours of their offices to work remotely.
Conclusion
A fair number of business owners are still figuring out what they will do as they move forward with their businesses during this pandemic. Google, Microsoft, and the other tech giants have also begun to allow their employees to work from their homes. The only difference that they have from Facebook is that they will only allow their employees to work remotely for a limited time. However, Zuckerberg is firm on his plan to make the best and long term decision.
According to Zuckerberg, a thoughtful and methodological approach to the current matter will help their company to strengthen the most important parts of the culture. Facebook has already invested a lot of time in developing various programs. Some of these are tools that aid people in growing their careers and help teams to more effectively execute plans together. Moreover, Zuckerberg said that they will be applying the same amount of care and commitment to Facebook’s remote work programs as well. He ended his statement by emphasizing that products can be built in a span of months. However, it takes years in order to build a culture. For this reason, Facebook is taking a long term approach.
Furthermore, other business leaders are seeking guidance from other leaders as they implement a new work structure that will work best for them.
