With new cases of coronavirus coming to light in the Netherlands, and an employee testing positive for COVID-19, Nike has temporarily shut its European headquarters near Amsterdam till 4 March. This time is going to be used by Nike to disinfect the premises.
Twitter, on the other hand, has made it mandatory for its employees in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea to work from home. At its other offices, however, it has left it to the employees to decide whether they wish to come to work or not, although it is encouraging its 5000 strong global workforce to work from home. The social media company is working to ensure that important tasks are optimised to facilitate remote working and participation.
There are about 2,000 employees working for Nike from 80 countries near Amsterdam. Eight new cases of COVID-19 have been reported by the Dutch health services, taking the total number of cases in the Netherlands to 18.
Many companies, such as AT&T and Citigroup have asked their employees to curtail international travel. Google and Facebook have cancelled their conferences in the US. But Twitter’s work-from-home policy has gone beyond what most companies have done to stop the virus from spreading. The Company had already been working towards it with its CEO being an advocate of remote working. In fact, the CEO had revealed plans to work from Africa for at least six months this year.
