UPDATED 15:58 EDT / MAY 21 2020

POLICY

Facebook will allow some employees to work from home permanently

Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said today that the company will allow some employees to work remotely on a permanent basis and indicated a majority of its workforce could eventually shift to a remote model.

Zuckerberg detailed the plan in his weekly livestreamed broadcast. As a first step, the company will open most new U.S. job postings to remote candidates. Facebook later this year will also start offering some existing employees the option to stop regularly coming into the office.

In an interview with The Verge, Zuckerberg elaborated that he sees as many as half of the social network’s currently 48,000-strong workforce operating remotely within 10 years. He explained the number by citing internal surveys that showed 40% of employees are extremely, very or somewhat interested in full-time remote work.

But the social network will take a cautious approach to rolling out the new model. At first, it will make employees eligible to telecommute only if they have a certain amount of experience, receive approval from their group leader or meet certain other conditions.

“Working well remotely will require some big changes to our company culture, so we are going to roll this out in stages, considering the needs of everyone in our community,” Lori Matloff Goler, Facebook’s vice president of people, wrote in a post today.

However, “offices will continue to play an important role in the future of work,” the executive added. “It’s where new grads will start their careers so they can learn, grow and easily access a network of support. It’s where people will come together to build community and solve problems, and it’s where our culture will be brought to life in a physical space.”

Facebook will reportedly start gradually reopening some of its 70 global offices on July 6. The plan is for facilities to operate at 25% capacity with safety procedures requiring workers to wear face masks and undergo temperature tests. Some of the social network’s offices in Asia may open even sooner.

Facebook is one of the highest-profile tech companies yet to have announced it will implement a permanent remote working policy. It follows in the footsteps of Twitter Inc. and Square Inc. Facebook is in a unique position because it’s also a major provider of collaboration tools used by other firms to support remote workers.

Against the backdrop of Zuckerberg’s announcement, the social network revealed today that its Workplace by Facebook collaboration service (pictured) has passed 5 million paid users. It’s marking the milestone by rolling out several new capabilities.

There’s Workplace Rooms, a virtual meeting space that can accommodate up to 50 people, and a tool called Live Producer with features such as automatic captioning for live broadcasts. It also allows workers to make their broadcasts more interactive by adding a question-and-answer section or sharing their screen with viewers.

Photo: Facebook

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