Facebook will reportedly not require its employees to get the new COVID-19 vaccine before they can return to their office. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave a statement to his employees on Thursday not requiring them to get vaccinated for them to come back to their office once they can officially reopen. Could this be due to its decision to shift into 50% remote work?
The news was first reported by The Daily Beast and it noted that the tech giant has confirmed with USA Today back in May that it won't actually expect the majority of its employees to return to the office up until July 6 at the very earliest.
Facebook COVID-19 decision
Facebook has employed over 50,000 employees and is reportedly headquartered over in Menlo Park located in California over in the San Francisco Bay Area in which the current COVID-19 cases are reportedly higher in comparison to the previous surges that happened back in spring and also summer. When the offices reportedly reopen, the employees are well expected to notify if they want to be considered either as a fully remote worker, but this could mean that they would be facing a certain pay cut depending on their current city of residence.
Zuckerberg also stated back in the spring that the company will be "aggressively" opening new remote hiring and also expects to shift 50% of its current working force to remote work. This big decision could be beneficial for both the company and its employees.
Facebook employee remote option
The decision is beneficial for the company since they will be able to save when it comes to employee salary but could potentially make the working process harder until they can fully adapt. This, however, has proven not to be a major problem for the company since it has been able to run Facebook smoothly despite the ongoing pandemic.
On the employees side, the freedom of working from home would also help them save on transportation and etc. but could also hurt depending on the pay cut that they will experience. Should the pay cut not be too significant, the employees would then be able to maintain their work without having to go back to the office.
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Why would Facebook not require employees to get a COVID-19 vaccine?
The official reason behind Facebook's decision to not require its employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine is still unknown but there could potentially be a correlation to its decision to become 50% remote. If 50% of the company's employees would work at home, the risk of COVID-19 in the workplace would be smaller than a full office.
This, of course, is still subject to the official explanation from Facebook should they be giving one some time soon. Although the COVID-19 vaccines have arrived, it might still take some time before they are rolled out to the general public. This, however, does not seem too far away due to its progress as of the moment.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian Buenconsejo
