The American company Microsoft is preparing to reopen its offices and switch to a hybrid working time method - or the so-called "Hybrid-Work" - so that remote work will be a routine part of many of its jobs, even after the Corona pandemic.
After employees moved to remote work more than a year ago due to the Coronavirus epidemic, it appears that the company is now ready to start welcoming employees again to its offices.
Microsoft's Washington headquarters will begin switching to a mixed-work approach on March 29, with some employees returning to their offices, while others working from home.
"Our goal is to give employees more flexibility and allow them to work where they feel more productive and comfortable, while also encouraging them to work from home," the company said - on Monday, in a post on its blog.
She said the software company's office sites, which span across 21 countries, would be ready to accommodate additional workers, in compliance with local authorities' directives.
She added that this initial matter will affect approximately 20% of Microsoft's more than 160,000 employees.
Once the pandemic does not pose a major threat to societies, the company said it expects a part-time work schedule from home to be a routine for many of its jobs.
The company previously said it would allow some employees to work remotely on a permanent basis with the approval of their managers, to see how to continue working with the employees scattered at home.
Last year, procedures were not uniform for all companies, while many companies are still delaying returning workers to their offices.
Alphabet, which owns Google, is keeping most of its employees working remotely until at least next September.
And the social networking company Twitter (Twitter) said that most of its employees will be able to continue working remotely, after the end of the epidemic.
Microsoft is betting that the era of hybrid work will generate a new wave of requirements to absorb employees (Reuters)
And many company leaders expect that to continue, according to a global survey conducted by Microsoft released on Monday, which showed that 73% of employees want work-from-home policies to remain flexible, and 65% of them said they want more personal time with their teams after the pandemic.
About 66% of firms are considering redesigning offices to accommodate mixed business environments.
Microsoft is betting that the era of hybrid work will generate a new wave of requirements to accommodate employees.
The company recorded a year of strong growth amid the epidemic, as it adapted to navigate the work environment remotely, and adopted the kind of cloud computing services and workplace collaboration tools that the company sells.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said - at the CEB summit - that all companies want to allow their employees to work remotely in the long term.
Netflix founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings said he did not see any benefits from the home work trend, and that the expected work weeks would turn into having office employees 4 days a week, with one working day remotely.
CEOs at other companies pointed to challenges related to training, integrating new employees, and terminating projects, as employees shifted to work from their homes.