Facebook to reopen offices from July 6 with 25 per cent capacity

Facebook will begin reopening its global offices starting July 6 with 25 per cent of its workforce working at a time.

Facebook employees who get back to the office will require to follow guidelines including wearing masks and regular temperature checks, Bloomberg reported.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in April had said that it would require most of its employees to work remotely till the end of May due to the pandemic allowing only a smaller percentage of employees to come to the office sooner. These are employees who work on essential tasks and include content reviewers working on counter-terrorism or suicide and self-harm prevention, and engineers working on complex hardware.

The deadline had then been extended to July as cases surged across the globe. Facebook had later said that it will allow all non-essential employees to work remotely through 2020.

Facebook will reopen its offices for essential workers from July as a plan of a multi-step process to begin some of its in-person operations. These are important in terms of data centre management and development of hardware including its Oculus VR devices.

Apart from this, it will also require certain service staff to come to the offices including shuttle bus operators, cafeteria and dining staff, security personnel, and other members responsible for standard daily operations.

According to Bloomberg, the social media giant will map out a plan to enforce social distancing guidelines on its shuttle buses as well.

From dining facilities to transportation, the company is planning on taking certain precautionary measures to prevent infection before its reopening.

Apart from Facebook, Google has also extended its remote working policy for non-essential workers through 2020 while Microsoft has extended its work from home policy until October.

Twitter, on the other hand, has recently announced that its employees can work from home even as the shelter-in-place orders are lifted.