“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,” Twitter said in the post. “If not, our offices will be their warm and welcoming selves, with some additional precautions, when we feel it’s safe to return.”

The company has more than 35 offices worldwide, including in Paris, New York and Toronto.

“We’ve been very thoughtful in how we’ve approached this from the time we were one of the first companies to move to a work-from-home model,” Twitter said in a statement. “We’ll continue to be, and we’ll continue to put the safety of our people and communities first.”

Eoin Treacy's view

I’ve been working from home for 13 years. In fact, as soon we got the internet at home when I was 19 years old I decided I was going to find a job I could do from anywhere. Here are my two cents.

If you someone is a self-starter in the office that will not change when they work from home. If a worker is a lay about in the office or relies on virtue signalling to the higher ups in the office. that is a lot more difficult to maintain when working from home.

Most workers will also quickly realise it is a lot easier to do two things at once on a video conference than it is in a conventional meeting. That runs the risk of tuning out in the event someone starts waffling. Generally, people are more willing to tolerate long rambling meetings in person than when at home.

For workers it is important to realise that you are not working from home. You now live at work. It is inevitable you will put in longer hours when working from home because there is always the temptation to “just check something”. Having a dedicated space or office for work is essential in my view. You need to be able to close the door on the inside world.

If more companies adopt work from home policies, as seems likely, demand for larger dwelling seems inevitable. My home has been fine for our needs for the last five years but now everyone is working from home. Just about every room in the house has been repurposed as an office, schoolroom, gym or studio. We are actively looking for a bigger home. That’s also something that will likely spur a migration from inner city smaller dwellings to larger suburban ones. That also will have a knock-on negative effect for central city office values.

Something everyone has had to deal with in lockdowns is we see a lot more of our children and spouses. That’s a good thing, the most precious thing in the world to me is the close relationship I have with my daughters. I have been priveleged to be with them for almost every day of their lives. However, many relationships survive on spouses only seeing each other for a few waking hours a day and on weekends. Prolonged interaction definitely raises the risk of partners getting on each other’s nerves and lockdowns certainly throw focus onto who does what around the house. I can say from experience that talking about these kinds of challenges is time well spent. Simultaneously accepting that one’s work life and home life are now the same is another major transition because both will be significantly affected.

Personally, I can’t see myself ever working in an office again. I am much more productive at home and I hate wasting time in meetings. The lockdowns will allow everyone to find out which they are best suited to and also whether their family life can support their preference.