Shopify says its 5,000 employees will work from home permanently, CEO says ‘office centricity is over’

Shopify announced today it will allow its 5,000 employees to work from home indefinitely, even after the dangers of the coronavirus pandemic fade and cities lift shutdowns. In a post on Twitter Thursday, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke said that the e-commerce giant will keep its offices closed until 2021 and that the majority of Shopify’s employees will continue working remotely even after the company reopens its offices.

The Canada-based Shopify now joins Twitter in permanent Work-From-Home shift. Just last week, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, in a statement, told his employees that they may remain working from home “forever.” In reference to working from home, Tobi Lutke said:

“As of today, Shopify is a digital by default company. We will keep our offices closed until 2021 so that we can rework them for this new reality. And after that, most will permanently work remotely. Office centricity is over.”

https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1263483496087064579

In a series of tweets Thursday, Lutke said: “Until recently, work happened in the office. We’ve always had some people remote, but they used the internet as a bridge to the office. This will reverse now. The future of the office is to act as an on-ramp to the same digital workplace that you can access from your #WFH setup.  This means that the work experience should be the same for everyone who works together at Shopify no matter where they are working from. Everyone will be in their own tile during meetings and we will use the best digital communications tools to work together.”

https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1263483498339405824

Tobi Lutke added that Shopify plans to keep its offices largely closed for the rest of the year as it re-designs its space for a “digital by default” mindset and adjusts to a remote work environment.