Twitter wants its employees to stay out of the office so they don’t come down with the coronavirus.

The social media giant told all of its roughly 4,900 staffers this week to work from home if possible as the potentially deadly disease known as COVID-19 continues to spread around the world.

“Our goal is to lower the probability of the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus for us and the world around us,” the San Francisco-based company said in a blogpost on Monday. “We are operating out of an abundance of caution and the utmost dedication to keeping our Tweeps healthy.”

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Twitter said working remotely will be mandatory for staff in Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea in part because of government restrictions. The coronavirus has reportedly spread rapidly in South Korea in recent weeks and has led Japan to temporarily close schools.

Twitter will make sure company meetings and other tasks are “optimized for remote participation,” according to the blog post. The company said it will keep offices open for employees who need to be in the spaces, which will see increased deep cleaning and sanitizing.

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“Our criteria will evolve over time as we get more information, and we will communicate to affected Tweeps as appropriate,” Twitter said.

Twitter noted that it is already moving toward an “increasingly remote” workforce. CEO Jack Dorsey  who plans to move to Africa for as long as six months  has said he wants to build a global staff for the company so that it’s “not burdened by time zones.”

New York Post

Vanguard News