Ford Employees to Continue Working from Home Through 2021
Photo: Ford
Ford Motor Company announced this month that it will allow employees who are currently working from home to continue to do so for the remainder of 2020. Ford’s decision comes as a result of its Workplace Preference Survey, in which 74 percent of 30,000 respondents said they’d prefer to work from home until at least the start of 2021. Twenty-four percent said they would prefer a hybrid approach with some time spent working onsite and some spent offsite, and the remaining three percent said they would prefer to work mostly onsite moving forward.
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“We appreciate everyone who shared their thoughts and opinions,” said Ford President of The Americas and International Markets Group Kumar Galhotra. “Extending the remote work policy prioritizes the health and safety of our workforce — especially those who have already returned to Ford facilities — and ensures the readiness of any additional workspace modifications required to manage the virus.”
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In early March, Ford urged non-business-critical employees to begin working from home, a decision that preceded the weeks-long shuttering of North American manufacturing. Even with vehicle manufacturing gradually ramping back up from mid-May and several employees returning to Ford facilities across America, Ford has staid the course in encouraging those employees who don’t need to be present at their offices to perform their duties remotely.
Ford says that some 115,000 employees have transitioned to working from home since March. It also says there has seen a tenfold increase in the use of digital collaborative tools like Yammer, Bluescape, and Webex. And despite the economic downturn, Ford says it’s made 520 new hires in the United States and has brought in 1,000 interns globally.
While Ford says that it won’t ask employees to return to their offices until Jan. 1, 2021, it notes that it will continue to assess the coronavirus pandemic and make a firmer decree closer to that date.
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Kyle S. Johnson lives in Cincinnati, a city known by many as “the Cincinnati of Southwest Ohio.” He enjoys professional wrestling, Halloween, and also other things. He has been writing for a while, and he plans to continue to write well into the future. See more articles by Kyle.