Salesforce planning to switch to flex-work model post-pandemic

San Francisco-based business software maker Salesforce says it will let most of its employees work from home permanently after the coronavirus pandemic, for at least part of the week. Other major tech companies such as Facebook Inc., Shopify Inc.Twitter Inc. and Google have made similar announcements of plans to adopt flexible-working policies.

This means employees will be in the office anywhere from one to three days a week. Employees who don’t live near an office or have roles that don’t require an office will work remotely full-time, Salesforce announced this week; however, those whose jobs require them to be in a physical office will continue to go in to work.

Read: Shopify moving majority of employees to permanent remote work

The company said its work-from-anywhere plan offers the company better ways to broaden its workforce to new geographies and new communities beyond “traditional city centres.” And creating more flexible schedules removes hurdles that may make it more difficult to be in the office daily — from picking up kids to caring for sick family members, the company noted on its website.

Salesforce said it made the decision based on feedback from employees. While 80 per cent of its workers surveyed wanted to have some connection to a physical office, nearly half said they wanted to go in only a few times a month.

Read: LinkedIn, Microsoft embracing flex-work policy for post-pandemic life