The COVID-19 outbreak has forced many companies to let employees work from home, but this temporary situation could be more permanent for some major companies who are considering permanent shifts to remote work. Company leaders are noticing that productivity has not dipped amid work from home. Having remote staff could help companies cut costs, which may be necessary if the economy keeps suffering.

Working from home could be the new work culture for many employees as many major companies are planning a permanent shift to work from home.

Shopify – Canadian-based, fast-growing global company Shopify offers an e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Shopify has over one million businesses in about 175 countries with total gross merchandise volume exceeding $41.1 billion. Recently the CEO and founder Toby Lutke tweeted, “As of today, Shopify is digital by default company. We will keep our offices closed until 2021 so that we can rework them for this new reality. And after that, most will permanently work remotely. Office centricity is over.” Going forward, the company will be digital by default. The company will allow its 5000 employees to work from home indefinitely, even after the dangers of the coronavirus pandemic fade and city lift shutdowns. According to its careers page, Shopify employees will have a home office allowance. Connecting with colleagues will be based on “when the sun’s up for everyone on your team.” Lutke said the move would allow the company to recruit talent from around the world.

Facebook: The impact of the coronavirus has caused Facebook to reassess its requirement for employees to work out of an office, and it’ll allow many of them to work remotely permanently. CEO Mark Zuckerberg expects that up to half of the company’s workforce will be working from home within 10 years. The company has nearly more than 48,000 employees. As per Mark Zuckerberg, “I think Facebook will be the most forward-leaning company on remote work at our scale, and we’ve been working on a thoughtful and responsible plan to do this.”

Twitter: One of the well-known companies Twitter announced to their employees that they may remain working from home forever. A Twitter employee can continue working from home even after the pandemic is over. As per the CEO of the company, “We want employees to be able to work where they feel most creative and productive.”

Square: Square is a successful publicly traded payments company based in San Francisco and the CEO of Twitter also serves as the SEO of Square. After announcing that Twitter employees can continue working from home even after a pandemic is over, Dorsey extended the same opportunity to his Square employees. The CEO said, “Moving forward, Squares will be able to work from home permanently, even once offices begin to reopen. Over the past several weeks, we’ve learned a lot about what it takes for people to effectively perform roles outside of an office, and we will continue to learn as we go.”

Upwork – Hayden Brown, the CEO of Upwork, a global freelancing platform, tweeted, “Building on our 20 years of experience as a remote work company, we are now permanently embracing a ‘remote-first’ model. Going forward, working remotely will be the default for everyone, while teams will also be able to come together—once it’s safe—for intentional collaboration and socialization. The #futureofwork is here.”

Barclays – Barclays CEO Jes Staley said this week that putting thousands of workers in a corporate office building may never happen again. Jes Staley also said, “There will be a long-term adjustment in how we think about our location strategy … the notion of putting 7,000 people in a building may be a thing of the past.”

Nationwide – The company announced a permanent transition to a hybrid work model. The insurance company will operate in their four main corporate offices in central Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa; Scottsdale, Arizona; and San Antonio, while the majority of their locations will continue working from home. The CEO of the company Kirt Walker said, “We’ve been investing in our technological capabilities for years, and those investments paid off when we needed to transition quickly to a 98% work-from-home model. Our associates and our technology team have proven to us that we can serve our members and partners with extraordinary care with a large portion of our team working from home.”

Mondelez – Mondelez’s CEO said the coronavirus crisis has shown “we can work in different ways,” and as a result, the company does not need all its global offices. The company is making few adjustments which will make it easier for the company in recession, including a rethink of where people work.

Morgan Stanley – The CEO of the company, James Gorman is uncertain about what work-life will look like after the pandemic but said the bank would need “much less real estate” in the coming days. Around 90% of Morgan Stanley’s employees have been working from home during the COVID-19 outbreak. He said, “We’ve proven we can operate with no footprint. Can I see a future where part of every week, certainly part of every month, a lot of our employees will be at home? Absolutely.” The statement explains that the company is certainly planning to switch for permanent remote work.

Do you find ‘remote work’ better than ‘office work’?

Do you know any such other companies whose shifting to permanent work from home?

Let us know in the comment box!