It’s back to the office for some tech employees this month.
Apple Inc. AAPL,
Select engineers and other workers began trickling back to Apple Park in Cupertino, Calif., in May, with the option of a nasal-swab test for COVID-19; requirements to wear masks and take temperature checks; limited weekly schedules onsite; and closed kitchens, according to a report by Bloomberg on Friday.
Juniper is taking a measured approach. “As of June 1, we have moved to the next phase of occupancy in our offices in California and Massachusetts (and many other locations around the world) by allowing up to 20% of workers to voluntarily return for short-term tasks or those tasks that cannot be carried out effectively from home,” Brad Minnis, vice president of environmental health & safety at Juniper, said in a statement to MarketWatch. “We have implemented significant safety arrangements to prevent exposure to COVID-19 in our offices and are practicing strict physical distancing in compliance with local regulations, CDC, OSHA and our own guidelines.”
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of critical internet infrastructure equipment has maintained about 5% of its staff onsite to support customers, as well as maintain IT and other critical systems and applications, he added.
“Our process is incredibly gradual,” Appian Corp. APPN,
See also: Google plans to begin reopening of some offices on July 6
Slowly, Americans are migrating back to a very different world — offices designed to accommodate social distancing, staggered schedules, temperature checks, daily deep cleanings, contact tracing and potential testing.
On Monday, Santa Clara County (Calif.) announced the reopening of manufacturing operations in the heart of Silicon Valley, a key economic engine of the region. Manufacturing accounted for 172,400 jobs in Santa Clara County as of April, or more than 15% of all civilian jobs.
Last week, MGM Resorts International MGM,
Overstock.com Inc. OSTK,
Their return comes at a time when most tech employers are in no hurry to uproot their work-from-home workforces. Employees at Facebook Inc. FB,
Indeed, tech is the industry least likely to go back to the office. Data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence reveals that 45% of software and IT services employees are likely to continue to work from home, compared to just 31% for health-care workers and 28% in manufacturing jobs.
“This is sort of like a traffic jam. You slow down, and then gradually regain speed,” VMware Inc. VMW,
Employees returning to the office face uncertainty, but many may choose to return after months of working at home with children or alone in a cramped apartment.
Nearly a quarter of businesses in the Western U.S. say they have partially reopened, according to a poll of 186 companies in California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Colorado by international law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP.
The impact to the commercial real estate market will be “seismic,” Tony Cho, CEO of Metro 1, a Miami-based real estate company, told MarketWatch. “The winners will be brokerages that can pivot and adapt to the new reality post-COVID, offering clients smaller, more affordable spaces in less urban-dense areas, and who can get creative with their lease structures,” Cho said.
Slack Technologies Inc. WORK,
As municipalities across the U.S. begin to ease stay-at-home restrictions and slowly reopen their economies, businesses of all types are dramatically reconsidering their existing floor plans and layouts for staff and customers to comply with social-distancing guidance by state and county restrictions. Companies ranging from Kroger Co. KR,
Some of those that did respond offered a pat response, such as Nvidia Corp. NVDA,
See also: Companies reveal their plans for what work will look like when America returns to the office
“Companies need to show employees through their floor plans that their offices are safe,” Brian Cross, director of professional services at Esri, a maker of location-mapping software and geographic-information system software that is used by the World Health Organization and Johns Hopkins to track the spread of COVID-19, told MarketWatch in a phone interview last Thursday.
Esri is also working with government agencies and a dozen Fortune 500 companies in fields such as tech and energy to help them create new, safer office spaces. Its customers already include Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM,
Through this technology, organizations can map and analyze existing floor plans and traffic flows to determine how spaces should be redesigned.
POPin, maker of an anonymous crowdsourcing app, said some of its customers — who include Ford Motor Co. F,
Across the world, in Israel, SysAid Technologies on Tuesday introduced an app called Worksafe that lets employees self-report their health status online.
“People want to return safely to work,” Jade Kahn, vice president of marketing at SysAid, told MarketWatch in a phone interview Monday.