Microsoft takes a site-by-site approach to reopening US offices

Sept. 9 (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) said Thursday it will no longer target a specific date for reopening all of its US offices and will instead reopen each site based on whether it meets a set of business criteria and local health guidelines.

“Given the uncertainty of COVID-19, we have decided not to attempt to predict a new date for a full reopening of our US work sites, rather than open US work sites as soon as it is safe to do so based on public health advice,” Microsoft said in a blog post.

Microsoft had previously said it would open its headquarters in Redmond and other US offices on October 4.

Microsoft said Thursday that every US site will return to work when all local government guidelines are met and when the site has reached “Phase 6” of a set of criteria the company set out in March. Reaching the sixth phase requires that “COVID-19 ceases to be a significant burden on the local community and presents itself more as an endemic virus like the seasonal flu,” Microsoft said in a previous blog post.

Some major tech companies are delaying a return to the office, while others like Facebook Inc (FB.O) are mandating vaccinations due to the spike in COVID-19 cases in the country. read more

The software giant said it will also give a 30-day transition period that will give employees time to prepare before returning to the office.

Reporting by Tiyashi Datta in Bengaluru and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco Editing by Arun Koyyur and Matthew Lewis

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