Now Microsoft allows employees to partly work from home forever with flexible work schedule

Working at Microsoft might be quite fulfilling now for those hoping to continue work-from-home (WFH) forever now. The company, which has around 163,000 full-time employees globally, as per Statista, has provided guidance to employees on its thinking around work flexibility. Microsoft’s Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer Kathleen Hogan in a blog post recently said that “for most roles, we view working from home part of the time (less than 50%) as now standard.” Hence, employees in roles and businesses, which are better suited for working away from the office, would be able to work from home or anywhere but the office for up to 50 per cent of their working week.

Hogan added that with respect to work hours, which meant the hours and days when employees work, for example, workday start and end times, full- or part-time, work schedule flexibility is now considered standard for most roles. However, part-time work would remain subject to manager approval.

Before Microsoft, companies like Twitter have already embraced work from home or anywhere forever. The company had in May announced that “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. If not, our offices will be their warm and welcoming selves, with some additional precautions, when we feel it’s safe to return,” Twitter’s VP, People, Jennifer Christie said in a blog post on May 12. Canadian e-commerce firm Shopify will also allow its employees for work from home forever. Its CEO Tobi Lutke had told Bloomberg in May that he would feel “absolutely” comfortable to letting employees work from home permanently.

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However, according to Microsoft’s latest Work Trend Index report, nearly one-third of workers in India cited increased rates of burnout over the past six months, with the lack of separation between work and personal life negatively impacting their wellbeing. The survey covered more than 6,000 information and first-line workers across eight countries including Australia, Japan, India and Singapore and found that “India had the second-highest percentage of workers facing increased burnout in Asia at 29 per cent.”