Twitter fully opens up offices – and says its staff will never have to return

The idea of having tweets archived forever and unable to be deleted is ‘nerve-racking – terrifying, even’, says Twitter

Twitter has re-opened all of its offices after the pandemic – and said staff will never have to return to them.

Offices will start re-opening from 15 March and business travel for employees is back straight away, announced new chief executive Parag Agrawal in a tweet.

But staff will never be forced into those newly opened offices, he stressed. The company said in October 2020 that it would allow working from home forever – and Mr Agrawal re-affirmed that commitment in a tweet.

“Wherever you feel most productive and creative is where you will work and that includes working from home full-time forever,” he wrote. Staff will have the option of coming in for some days in the week, and that has been the most popular option among staff, he said.

Mr Agrawal noted that such a policy is likely to run into some problems. “Distributed working will be much, much harder,” he wrote. “There will be lots of challenges in the coming months, and we’ll need to be proactive, intentional, learn, and adapt.”

The announcement of the re-opening of the offices came almost exactly two years after it told staff to start working from home. At the beginning of the pandemic, large tech companies were among the first to embrace the shutdown of offices as the impact of the outbreak became clear.

Technology companies have diverged in how they have asked their staff to come back, however. While most have offered some flexibility, Twitter is notable in retaining a commitment to working from home forever.