The new Microsoft remote work policy will provide employees more flexibility to work from home, according to a company spokesperson.
Under the new guidelines, all Microsoft employees will work remotely less than 50% of the time. With their managers' approval, employees work remotely full time or relocate, with wages adjusted based on geography.
Employees were informed about the new Microsoft remote work policy this year, a company spokesperson told CNBC. The tech firm last told their people to work remotely until at least January 2021.
“We shared guidelines internally this week to provide options for our employees to plan ahead for when we can return to the workplace safely,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC. “Our goal is to evolve the way we work over time with intention—guided by employee input, data, and our commitment to support individual work styles and business needs while living our culture.”
Microsoft labeled the new policy as a “hybrid model,” which is not similar to work-from-home rule that other tech companies such as Twitter have announced. The new Microsoft remote work policy is like Facebook’s recent remote work policy, which allows people to work from home and relocate as well with adjusted salaries. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in May that 50% of employees will be working from home within the next five to 10 years.
Meanwhile, some Microsoft roles, such as data center management jobs, will require people to show up physically at offices. Microsoft has over 166,000 employees to date.
Work from home policies
Twitter has informed its employees that they can work from home “forever” if they want to as the company plans for what is to come after the coronavirus pandemic.
While working from home is an option, Twitter workers may still return to the office if they prefer to when it reopens.
In a blog post, Twitter stated: “The past few months have proven we can make that work. So if our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen.”
In July, Google announced that their employees will work from home through June 2021, according to the tech giant’s announcement.
“To give employees the ability to plan ahead, we are extending our global voluntary work from home option through June 30, 2021 for roles that don’t need to be in the office,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees. The company had previously said Google employees may return to the office in January 2021.
The decision to allow Google employees to work from home will affect “nearly all” of the company’s 200,000 employees. These include contractors and full-time workers, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
Microsoft earnings
Microsoft (MSFT) posted $38 billion in revenue for the three months that ended in June. This is a 13% increase from the same period in the prior year and higher than the $36.5 billion that Wall Street analysts had predicted.
The quarter’s earnings were $1.46 per share, defeating analysts’ forecast of $1.34 share.”The last five months have made it clear that tech intensity is the key to business resilience,” CEO Satya Nadella said in a release. “Organizations that build their own digital capability will recover faster and emerge from this crisis stronger.”
Meanwhile, businesses that would upgrade their digital capabilities may get better incentives as more people rely on working remotely.
Microsoft’s operating expenses rose by 13% during the quarter. It covers a $450 million charge associated with the plan the company announced last month to shut down all 83 of its brick-and-mortar retail stores.
Operating expenses in the productivity and business processes segment rose by 10%, “driven by Teams marketing and investments in cloud engineering.”
“Right now, what I would like us to focus on, in the interest of our long-term investors, is to say: How can we build this modern tech stack so that it can really … help customers transform, be resilient, and help us to get into new categories and build a strong position in those categories,” Nadella told analysts Wednesday.
