Yahoo Finance Coronavirus: Facebook to limit office capacity to 25% from July
Facebook (FB) will reopen its offices in July at just 25% capacity, require temperature checks, and will introduce multiple shift patterns, according to a report from Bloomberg.
The social media giant will also introduce limits as to how many employees can convene in meeting rooms, will expand the distances between the desks of workers, and will also introduce grab-and-go meals in place of buffet-style meals at its cafeterias.
Office gyms will remain closed, while external visitors to its offices around the world will also be disallowed on an interim basis, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the company’s plans.
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The company plans to require employees to wear masks when they are not social distancing, and may require them at all times in certain office locations.
Bloomberg said that Facebook does not plan to test employees for coronavirus, but is potentially considering doing so if faster testing methods become more widely available.
The California-based company is also examining ways to introduce social-distancing protocols on its shuttle busses, which are widely used by employees to get to its offices.
Facebook employs about 45,000 people around the world, including more than 3,000 in the UK.
Facebook did not respond to a request for comment, though the company had already announced earlier this month that employees who are able to work remotely could do so for the rest of 2020.
READ MORE: Twitter employees can work from home 'forever'
Employees who can work from home have been doing so since March, but Bloomberg reported that some hardware employees may be asked to return to working from its offices even before 6 July.
Meanwhile, rival social media firm Twitter (TWTR) announced that employees could choose to continue working from home “forever.”
Twitter said, however, that staff would be able to go back to work in its offices once they reopened if they wanted to.
Twitter, which alongside Facebook was one of the first companies to move to a work-from-home model, said that it did not anticipate being one of the first to return to its offices.
Twitter started implementing home-working from March and does not plan to reopen its offices from September at the earliest.
