PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
LinkedIn has become one of the most prominent Silicon Valley-based companies to tell its employees that they will be able to work remotely on a permanent basis.
The Sunnyvale-based business networking company trusts its employees to do what’s best for the company, CEO Ryan Roslanskysaid in a blog post on Thursday.
“We’ve learned every individual and every team works differently, so we’re moving away from a one-size-fits-all policy,” Roslansky said in the post.
This doesn’t mean that LinkedIn, which has an extensive network of office buildings it leases or owns in Sunnyvale and elsewhere in the Valley and Bay Area, will be closing its offices. The company is keeping a hybrid work structure, but is taking a more open approach than most other local companies.
already led some Apple employees to ask for a less structured approach.
LinkedIn’s plan reflects the fact that some 87% of its 16,000 full-time workers said they would still like to be in the office sometimes, Roslansky said in his post.
“We’re embracing flexibility with both hybrid and remote roles, expecting more of us to be remote than pre-Covid and removing the expectation of being in the office 50% of the time,” he said. He continued: “We’re continuing to invest in amazing workplaces for every day work and those times when our teams come together.”
LinkedIn, like every other big company, shifted to a remote work situation because of Covid-19. But as coronavirus vaccines became widely available and transmission and hospitalization rates dropped, companies began to map out a return to the office. A few outliers said they wanted employees to come back five days a week, while most said they would shift to a hybrid situation.
The number of companies to say they would allow employees to work from home for good remains few. Twitter and Square — both led by CEO Jack Dorsey — said early in the now 17-month pandemic that it was shifting to a permanent remote work approach. And Facebook, which last year said that some senior employees would be able to work remotely on a permanent basis, this June opened up that opportunity to most of its U.S. workforce as long as they get their supervisor’s approval.
LinkedIn also is taking a different path than its parent company, Microsoft Inc. Under the strategy the Redmond, Washington-based tech giant laid out in May, all of its 160,000 employees will be able to work remotely 50% of the time
Source : J. Jennings Moss | www.bizjournals.com