Should Companies Allow Workers to Permanently Work From Home After Pandemic?

NBC Universal, Inc.

Many believe this pandemic will create some changes that last permanently.

Some say that will include a lot more people working from home once stay-at-home orders are lifted. Twitter's CEO is offering company employees the option to permanently work from home even when COVID-19 is a thing of the past.

But does permanently working from home make sense for all of us? And what would that mean for all those office buildings that are a hallmark of Silicon Valley?

Let's face it: Apple didn't build a giant spaceship of a campus so it could sit empty. And the Salesforce Tower doesn't tower over San Francisco so people can work from home.

Tech companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google are still getting the job done working remotely. But Bluescape CEO Peter Jackson knows there are security risks to staying away from the tech mothership -- his company's software deals with just that.

"You have conversations that are very sensitive, and suddenly you have people bombing those calls or having access to those documents because you're doing a screen share," Jackson said of such security risks.

If companies do want employees to return to the office after the pandemic, there may be a need for more commercial real estate because companies are likely going to want its workers to spread out.

Contact Us