SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Several of the largest technology companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Twitter Inc and Google, plan to keep their offices practically closed for more months, despite the government allowing them to open on Tuesday in a limited capacity.
Taking into account the decline in coronavirus infections, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties simplified the guidelines that kept most office buildings closed last year, except for essential security and support staff.
Starting on Wednesday, companies can open their offices to up to a quarter of their capacity.
“San Francisco is coming to life,” Mayor London Breed told reporters. “When we start reopening, more and more people will want to go back to work and be around other people.”
But Silicon Valley companies, which pledged last year to allow workers to stay at home until summer or indefinitely, said they met their deadlines.
They cited their own analysis of public health data, other safety considerations and worker preferences. The adoption of vaccines, which in California are accessible only to the most vulnerable populations, is also a minor factor.
Network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc and file storage service Dropbox Inc. said their domestic mandatory work policies would remain in effect until June, while Box Inc. said its reopening was still scheduled for September.
Pinterest Inc is not planning a significant reopening until at least August, Alphabet Inc’s Google until September and DocuSign Inc not before October.
Twitter, Adobe Inc, PayPal Holdings Inc, Twilio Inc, Yelp Inc and Zoom Video Communications Inc will also remain closed, despite what Breed and other local government officials have described as a move to the “orange level” of the “red level” of the blockade California restrictions.
Breed spokesman Jeff Cretan said San Francisco officials hope that small and medium-sized companies will be the first to return.
‘HIRING ADVANTAGE’
Among the few companies that intend to take advantage of flexibility are SAP SE, which said it is strongly considering the partial reopening of its Bay Area offices in weeks, and Slack Technologies, which is considering a date to invite some workers back.
San Francisco e-commerce software startup Fast will open its doors – and windows for security – to up to 25% of its 56 Bay Area employees on Wednesday, said spokesman Jason Alderman. He said the company hopes to start receiving job applications from people forced to work remotely by their current employers.
“Companies like Fast, which allow people to enter the office if they want, will be an advantage in hiring,” he said.
A survey carried out last year with 9,000 knowledge workers commissioned by workplace chat software company Slack revealed that 20% want to work remotely, 17% at the office and 63% a combination of the two.
Facebook Inc, whose offices remain closed globally until July 2, said this month that it is opening 10% of vacancies in the Seattle area offices to help struggling workers at home. He had no similar news to share about his offices in San Francisco.
Microsoft Corp, which announced plans on Monday to partially reopen its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, next week, did not immediately comment on the San Francisco locations.
IBM declined to discuss the Bay Area’s plans. But several senior executives at their New York headquarters began working in their offices behind closed doors.
Reporting by Paresh Dave; Additional reporting by Jane Lanhee Lee; Muralikumar Anantharaman edition