With COVID 19 taking over the world, work-from-home has become the new norm and almost all the companies around the world have directed employees to follow it until the pandemic is over. However, Microsoft is taking it a notch higher and has laid down guidelines that will allow its employees to work remotely from the comfort of their homes forever.
According to Microsoft’s ‘hybrid workplace’ guidance accessed by the Verge, the company will now allow its employees to work remotely for less than 50% of the working weeks. This means that employees can carry on with their jobs at Microsoft, working from home for half of their working weeks. Employees can avail the benefits of flexible working hours without any approvals and can request their managers for part-time work hours too.
Employees can even request for manager’s approval on permanently working from home, which means they will never have to go to the office, even after the pandemic is over! However, Microsoft does take note of the fact that this will be only possible for jobs that can be done from the comfort of homes, employees that require office tools, hardware, labs, data centers etc., might have to continue working in the office.
Various top tech companies have been following the work-from-home norm since the onset of the pandemic. Tech giants like Google and Facebook have notified their employees allowing them to work-from-home up until July 2021. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg even said that almost half of its employees could work remotely in the next five to ten years.
The Seattle-based tech giant is also allowing its employees to shift domestically and work from another place or country if they wish to, subject to approval and viability. However, job benefits and compensation will be varying in accordance with the company’s geopay scale. Employees won’t receive relocation costs from the company if they plan to move from the office location and work remotely. Permanent work-from-home employees will receive home office expenses.
The world will definitely come out of the pandemic very differently from what it was before. Various technological advancements in these times have changed the perception of what is possible and what is not. Working from home and attending virtual meetings and classes is the new normal, and we might see this continue after the pandemic is over.
