Google delays return to office and eyes 'flexible work week'- NYT

Alphabet Inc's Google will allow its employees to work from home until September next year, extending the return to the office by a few months, the New York Times reported on Monday.

The company was also testing the idea of a "flexible workweek" once it is safe to return to the office, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai told the company's staff in an email on Sunday, according to the report.

As part of the plan, Google's employees would be expected to work at least three days a week in the office while working from home the other days, the newspaper report said.

"We are testing a hypothesis that a flexible work model will lead to greater productivity, collaboration, and well-being," Pichai wrote in the email.

Google was one of the first companies to ask its employees to work from home due to the pandemic. 

It has previously delayed the timing by when the employees should return to the office from January next year to July. 

(Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

-reuters-

PC sales climb as pandemic keeps consumers at home — trackers

Gartner and International Data Corporation (IDC) reports released Thursday show shipments of desktop computers, laptops and workstations grew in the second quarter as pandemic-related disruptions to the supply chain were overcome.

“The strong demand driven by work-from-home as well as e-learning needs has surpassed previous expectations and has once again put the PC at the center of consumers’ tech portfolio,” said IDC Mobile Device Trackers research manager Jitesh Ubrani.


“What remains to be seen is if this demand and high level of usage continues during a recession and into the post-COVID world since budgets are shrinking while schools and workplaces reopen.”

IDC determined that PC shipments worldwide jumped 11.2% to 72.3 million units in the same quarter a year earlier. Gartner had the climb at 2.8%, to 64.8 million units.

Both market trackers ranked HP and Lenovo as the top two PC makers, with Dell in third place. Apple, which doesn’t use Microsoft’s Windows operating system but is nevertheless grouped among PC makers, came in fourth.

Gartner research director Mikako Kitagawa described the second-quarter figures as a short-term recovery, with some of the growth due to distributors and shops restocking supplies as they become available.


Early indicators suggest strong PC shipments for education, business, and consumer uses such as streaming entertainment, according to IDC’s devices and displays research vice president Linn Huang.

“With inventory still back-ordered, this goodwill will continue into July,” Huang said.

“However, as we head deeper into a global recession, the goodwill sentiment will increasingly sour.”

Agence France-Presse

Google makes its video meeting service free to all

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Google on Tuesday made its business videoconferencing service free to all users, ramping up competition for Zoom as people flock online to stay connected during the pandemic.

Google Meet had previously been reserved for subscribers to the premium G Suite software tools for businesses.

Meet will be available "to all users around the world, to enable people all walks of life to communicate collaborate and really stay in touch more effectively through the pandemic," G Suite vice president Javier Soltaro told AFP.

Google touted security and reliability features of Meet, and its foundation in the California-based internet giant's computing cloud.

Use of video calls and conferencing has rocketed as people work, learn, and socialize remotely while staying home to avoid the coronavirus.

Many people have turned to Zoom, which has scrambled to stem security problems such as data hacking and harassment by individuals who crash sessions in what is referred to as "Zoombombing."

Google said in a blog post that it has "invested years in making Meet a secure and reliable video conferencing solution that’s trusted by schools, governments and enterprises around the world."

People will need use or create free Google accounts to take part in meetings, which will have a 60-minute time cap that will be enforced starting the end of September, according to the company.

Google said free access will roll out gradually in coming weeks.

Some six million businesses and organizations from hospitals and banks to manufacturing facilities and warehouses already using G Suite already have access to Meet video conferencing, according to Google.

The move comes days after Facebook unveiled a new video chat service with virtual "rooms" where people can pop in to visit friends.

Through the Facebook Messenger application, users will be able to start video call sessions that as many as 50 friends can join and linger in as long as they wish, even if they don't have Facebook accounts.

Agence France-Presse

Remote work revenue could help Microsoft offset coronavirus impacts, analysts say

When Microsoft Corp reports earnings on Wednesday, analysts expect some areas of its business to take a hit from the novel coronavirus pandemic, with lower-than-expected sales in areas like advertising on its LinkedIn social network.

But analysts also expect a surge in the use of Microsoft's cloud computing services and collaboration tools such as the Teams app "as more companies are effectively forced into the cloud" by stay-home orders, as Macquarie Capital analysts Sarah Hindlian-Bowler and Calvin Patel wrote in a research note. Analysts expect those upticks to offset some of declines and position Microsoft as well or better than its peers as the full economic impact of the pandemic becomes clearer.

Analysts expect Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, to report $33.63 billion in revenue and earnings of $1.27 per share for its fiscal third quarter, up from $30.5 billion and $1.14 per share the year before, according to IBES data from Refinitiv as of April 27. The biggest drivers will remain Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform, which competes with Amazon.com's Amazon Web Services, and its online software for businesses.

"I don't think that narrative will take a long-term hit," Alex Zukin, managing director for software equity research at RBC Capital Markets, said in an interview. "You're seeing investors more than willing to give a pass to short-term pockets of weakness around certain businesses."

The Teams app, in particular, has benefited from stay-home orders in many countries, hitting 44 million users last month. While much of the surge was related to the novel coronavirus and could fade as workers return to offices, Macquarie's Hindlian-Bowler and Patel expect Teams adoption to be permanently higher than it would have been.

In other segments, analysts expect revenues to be weaker than previously anticipated, including the paid use of LinkedIn by job recruiters, software tools designed for computer servers that sit in a company's own data centers and even sales of Windows for personal computers, which were interrupted as factories in China shut down during the first three months of the calendar year.

Some of those revenue streams could spring back. After hitting supply shortages, for example, laptop orders have rebounded as companies and consumers bought machines to work from home, an impact that could show in Microsoft's fourth-quarter earnings report.

Sales in other units more reliant on large one-time deals like on-premises server software could be depressed for months as businesses put non-essential spending on the back burner. But much of Microsoft's revenue has shifted to subscription or consumption-based billing, which should soften the effect.

"The revenue stream for Microsoft is extremely sticky," Zukin said. (Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie Adler)

-reuters-

Virus upends outsourcing as firms 'reshore' and embrace AI

MUMBAI/MANILA - Coronavirus is permanently shaking up the global outsourcing industry as lockdowns from Bangalore to Manila prompt firms to "reshore" jobs and, with AI, to move further away from needing humans at all.

Restrictions on normal activity in these countries and others have created a logistical nightmare for the managers of call centers and other back-office operations for foreign corporations.

Having their staff work from home is difficult because of rules governing the handling of sensitive material such as financial transactions for bank customers from Scotland to San Francisco.

Also, many workers in places like India and the Philippines live in crowded housing with poor-quality broadband, while some firms do not have enough equipment like laptops to provide to employees.

"The outsourcing industry doesn't lend itself to working from home," consultant Vivek Sood, author of "Outsourcing 3.0", told AFP.

"We are talking about companies which used to ask employees to leave even their pens and pencils outside the office because of security concerns."

TEMPORARY STAY ARRANGEMENTS

Desperate to stay operational, some firms have resorted to having staff live at their place of work.

Vodafone India, for example, says it has "organized temporary stay arrangements at our data center locations, (and) made food and groceries available at critical locations".

Similar practices by others have sparked the ire of trade unions.

Mylene Cabalona, president of the Business Process Outsourcing Industry Employees' Network (BIEN), told AFP the union had received reports of some workers "effectively quarantined and locked down in their offices".

The Financial Times in early April published photos that it said appeared to show workers sleeping on the floor of a call center in the Philippines, living in what they described as "subhuman" conditions.

DON'T CALL

Anthony Esguerra, who works at a Manila firm handling data for a Chinese online gaming company, admitted that 80 percent of its operations were disrupted.

"The workflow of processing players' requests really slowed down, since our internet access was limited compared to when we were working at the office," he told AFP.

Companies like telecom firm Spark New Zealand and Taiwanese computer maker Acer, which uses a Philippine facility to serve Australian and Kiwi customers, have simply told people not to call.

Australia's Telstra and Optus and Britain's Virgin Media -- all of which have offshore units in India and the Philippines -- have announced plans to recruit hundreds of staff back home.

Telstra, which heavily relies on its Philippine facility for customer service, initially said it would hire 1,000 temporary workers, but later raised that figure to 3,500. 

Optus sought to fill 500 vacancies, saying that while the company had previously believed "its diversity of locations would make us resilient to any disruptions", this was no longer the case.

OK COMPUTER

But the bigger lasting change from the pandemic will likely involve the wider use of artificial intelligence to handle tasks currently performed by human beings, experts said.

"AI doesn't go on strike, it can work 24/7 and throws up fewer complications," said Michael Czinkota, who teaches international business at Washington's Georgetown University.

Telstra, for instance, which was already planning to slash customer service calls by two-thirds by 2022, now intends to accelerate its use of AI.

"(We) will be using this as an opportunity to further digitize and automate our business," CEO Andy Penn told The Sydney Morning Herald this month.

TRAILBLAZER

"COVID-19 (has) achieved in six to eight weeks what the evangelists of automation have not managed... for more than five years," Ilan Oshri from the University of Auckland's Graduate School of Management told AFP.

But the "onshoring" of jobs and the increased use of AI will have a big impact on countries that for years have benefitted from taking on the back-office operations of multinationals.

India, in particular, was a trailblazer. As of 2017, the industry employed nearly four million Indians and raked in revenues of more than $150 billion, according to trade body NASSCOM.

In the Philippines, the industry started from scratch in the early 1990s but by 2019 its revenues were equal to 7.3 percent of the country's gross domestic product, employing 1.3 million people.

"We will have to rethink the whole outsourcing model," said consultant Sood.

"The assumption that you can offshore everything to Bangalore and Manila and relax has gone out of the window."

Agence France-Presse

Zoom rolls out new measures as security fears mount

SAN FRANCISCO -- Videoconferencing platform Zoom is rolling out a number of measures meant to stem criticism over how it has handled security as users flock to the application during the coronavirus pandemic.

Zoom chief executive Eric Yuan laid out steps Wednesday that the company is taking against problems such as data hacking and harassment by individuals who crash sessions in what is referred to as "Zoombombing."

By week's end, paid account holders will be able to select which regions their data is routed through during their sessions in a move apparently aimed at concerns over information passing through China where it might be subject to snooping.

"As a reminder, meeting servers in China have always been geofenced with the goal of ensuring that meeting data of users outside of China stays outside of China," Zoom said in an online post.

The Silicon Valley startup also said that it was working with cyber-security firm Luta Security to overhaul processes and its "bug bounty" program that pays rewards to researchers who find security flaws in its operations.

Zoom also addressed a recent report that users' log-in information was being sold by criminals on the "dark web."

The credentials were likely stolen elsewhere on the internet, or by malicious code slipped into people's computers, according to Zoom advisor Alex Stamos, former chief of security at Facebook.

It is not uncommon for hackers to take passwords and account names pilfered in data breaches and then check whether people use them for other online services.

Zoom said it was building systems to "detect whether people are trying out username and password pairings and block them from trying again."

Improvements to Zoom security also include a toolbar to easily access features such as locking chats from strangers and making meeting password requirements a default setting.

"To successfully scale a video-heavy platform to such a size with no appreciable downtime and in the space of weeks is literally unprecedented in the history of the internet," Stamos said in a post.

"The related security challenges are fascinating."

India this week banned the use of Zoom for government remote meetings, saying it "is not a safe platform."

The New York school system has also banned the videoconferencing platform based on security concerns.

Prosecutors from several US states are meanwhile investigating the company's privacy and security practices, and the FBI has warned of Zoom sessions being hijacked.

According to Yuan, the number of people taking part in Zoom meetings daily eclipsed 200 million in March, up from just 10 million at the end of last year.

Agence France-Presse

More sick leaves, fewer meetings: What workplaces will look like after lockdowns

WASHINGTON -- Around the world countries are hitting their coronavirus peaks and starting to grapple with questions about when and how to reopen their economies.

But those people fortunate enough to have not lost their jobs should be prepared for a "new normal" when they finally go back to work, say experts.

Here is a preview of what to expect.

NO HANDSHAKES, FEWER MEETINGS

Handshakes are out "indefinitely," said Tom Frieden, the former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Next, offices will need to start thinking about practical measures.

"Can we have doors that don't have to be opened by people? Should we be taking the temperatures of all people who enter?" he said in a call with reporters.

No-touch hand sanitizer dispensers will become common. Steps may be taken to reduce overcrowding in common spaces, and computers and phones may no longer be shared.

Mask use will be encouraged, and some workplaces may provide them.

Businesses like supermarkets are already keeping down the number of people who can enter, placing clear plastic barriers between employees and customers and enforcing physical distancing -- this could be extended to all shops, cafes and face-to-face engagements.

Offices may also stagger employee hours and have workers come in on different days so that fewer people are present at a given time -- and cut meetings.

"One of the positive impacts of COVID I hope will be fewer meetings, because there are just too many meetings," added Frieden.

MORE SICK DAYS

"Staying at home if you are sick may be encouraged vs discouraged," said Brandon Brown, a University of California Riverside epidemiologist.

The US has a famously brutal work culture driven in part by the fact there is no federally mandatory sick leave.

As a result, people tend to power through despite illness: an October 2019 nationwide survey of 2,800 workers by the accounting firm Robert Half found that 33 percent always go in when sick. That may change.

Telework may become more common for many, especially as people have learned during enforced lockdowns that it is possible.

"One thing that we found out from this pandemic and sheltering in place at home, is that in-person meetings are not always necessary. Virtual meetings should be an ongoing option from here on out," added Brown.

COUNSELING PROVIDED

The pandemic has already extracted a devastating death toll, particularly in the hardest-hit region New York, and the onus for providing counseling may fall to great extent on employers.

"Don't forget a lot of people are gonna go back to work having lost family members," said Marc Wilkenfeld, a doctor who specializes in occupational medicine at NYU Langone Health.

"I think the bigger companies or even the smaller companies are going to need to address these issues, because you do want a workforce coming back healthy, physically and mentally."

TOILET LIDS AND BETTER PLUMBING

Workplaces will continue to hammer home the message to wash hands regularly and thoroughly, said Brown.

Often touched surfaces will be cleaned more frequently, but greater attention will need to be placed on keeping bathrooms clean and improving plumbing, since there is some evidence that the coronavirus can be spread via feces.

A recent Lancet paper recommended "do not ignore unexplained foul smells in bathrooms, kitchens, or wash areas" and included tips for improving plumbing like having functioning U-bends that prevent the outflow of sewage gases.

One step toward mitigating the risk is flushing the toilet with the lid down, since a flush can release up to 80,000 contaminated droplets and leave them suspended in the air for hours if it's not covered, according to a recent Hong Kong study.

But many toilets in modern workspaces lack lids -- a trend that may be reversed.

WHO RETURNS FIRST

People over the age of 65 or who have underlying conditions like heart disease or diabetes are at higher risk for complications arising from COVID-19 -- and their return to offices will come later.

"When people start to go back to work, I think that it's going to be that not everyone goes back at the same time," Wilkenfeld said.

Agence France-Presse

Elon Musk's SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns - memo

NEW YORK, United States - Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX has banned its employees from using video conferencing app Zoom, citing "significant privacy and security concerns," according to a memo seen by Reuters, days after US law enforcement warned users about the security of the popular app.

Use of Zoom and other digital communications has soared as many Americans have been ordered to stay home to slow the spread of coronavirus.

SpaceX's ban on Zoom Video Communications Inc illustrates the mounting challenges facing aerospace manufacturers as they develop technology deemed vital to national security while also trying to keep employees safe from the fast-spreading respiratory illness.

In an email dated March 28, SpaceX told employees that all access to Zoom had been disabled with immediate effect.

"We understand that many of us were using this tool for conferences and meeting support," SpaceX said in the message. "Please use email, text or phone as alternate means of communication."

Two people familiar with the matter confirmed the contents of the mail.

A representative for SpaceX, which has more than 6,000 employees, did not respond to a request for comment. Chief Executive Musk also heads electric car maker Tesla Inc.

NASA, one of SpaceX's biggest customers, also prohibits its employees from using Zoom, said Stephanie Schierholz, a spokeswoman for the US space agency.

The FBI’s Boston office on Monday issued a warning about Zoom, telling users not to make meetings on the site public or share links widely after it received two reports of unidentified individuals invading school sessions, a phenomenon known as "zoombombing."

Investigative news site The Intercept on Tuesday reported that Zoom video is not end-to-end encrypted between meeting participants, and that the company could view sessions.

Zoom did not immediately respond to requests for comment on SpaceX’s decision, but it has been advising users to use all the privacy functions on its platform.

As a defense contractor, California-based SpaceX has been classified as an essential business, allowing it to stay open through shutdowns that are in effect in California and Texas, the development and testing hub for its Starship rocket that could be used to get to the moon and Mars and send national security satellites to space. 

Reuters

Facebook scrambles as use soars in time of COVID-19 isolation

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Facebook said Wednesday it would place "authoritative" coronavirus content at the top of user feeds as it scrambled to keep up with increased usage and stem the flow of misinformation on its platform and WhatsApp messaging.

The leading social network said it has nearly doubled server capacity to power WhatsApp as people in isolation place more voice and video calls using the popular messaging service.

Facebook also donated $1 million to the International Fact-Checking Network to expand the presence of local fact-checkers and curb misinformation on WhatsApp, said Facebook head of health Kang-Xing Jin.

"Teams are hard at work to make sure all the services run smoothly, because this is clearly a time when people want to stay connected," Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said while updating reporters on the company's efforts.

"We want to make sure we do our part to alleviate loneliness."

As part of an effort to be a resource for reliable information about the coronavirus crisis, Facebook is rolling out an information center that will be displayed at the top of news feeds at the social network.

The information hub was built in collaboration with health organizations and will roll out in the US and Europe through Wednesday, with plans to expand it to other locations.

"Our goal is to put authoritative information in front of everyone who uses our services," Zuckerberg said.

The hub will display content from public health experts, celebrities, academics and others encouraging ways to reduce coronavirus risk -- such as by taking social-distancing seriously, according to Zuckerberg.

Facebook is under intense scrutiny regarding how it prevents hoaxes or dangerously misleading information regarding the deadly pandemic from spreading on its platform, according to Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi.

"It's not politics. It's not (an) election. This is killing people," Milanesi said of the importance of getting people the truth about the coronavirus.

"If they're smart -- I know it sounds callous on my part -- but they would use this to win back some of the positive sentiment around the brand."

Moderation modified

Facebook has been grappling with making it possible for content to be moderated at home by workers -- many of them contracted through outside companies -- who are working remotely to reduce coronavirus risk.

"This is a big one we have been focused on for the past few days," Zuckerberg said.

"There are certain kinds of content moderation that are very sensitive -- such as suicide and self harm -- and if you are working on that content for a long time it can be very emotionally challenging."

Some content being checked by moderators also comes with privacy concerns.

Facebook is moving the most sensitive types of content moderation to full-time employees for now, Zuckerberg said.

"I am quite worried the isolation of people staying at home could lead to more depression or mental health issues and I want to make sure we are ahead of that with more people working on suicide and depression prevention, not less," Zuckerberg said.

"That will cause a trade-off with (moderating) content not representing imminent physical risk to people."

Zuckerberg vowed that Facebook will make sure people doing contract work for the social network get full pay even if they aren't able to do their regular jobs from home.

Facebook will continue to use artificial intelligence systems to watch for banned content.

Zuckerberg at home

Zuckerberg is among the Facebook employees working from home.

"I don't think it would be very good to encourage everyone else to do that and not do that myself," Zuckerberg said of working from home, with his doctor wife Priscilla and their children.

"We are trying to find a way to balance working from home and taking care of kids as well; that is a challenge we are trying to help the whole company to navigate."

Zuckerberg refuted US media reports that Facebook is in talks with Washington over potentially using personal data from smartphones to track and combat the coronavirus outbreak.

"We are not aware of any active conversations or asks with the US or other governments at this point asking for this data directly," Zuckerberg said.

"I don't think it would make sense to shares people's data in a way that people didn't opt in to doing."

Zuckerberg said that Facebook is not open to sharing users' data with governments, and that "no one is asking."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

PLDT, Globe gear for data demand as COVID-19 keeps millions in Philippines indoors

MANILA - PLDT Inc and Globe Telecom said Wednesday they were taking steps to meet demand for data and keep connections stable as the 30-day Luzon lockdown forced millions in the Philippines to stay home.

PLDT will offer a free "speed boost" for its fiber subscribers, bringing the minimum internet connection to 25 Mbps until April 30, it said in a statement. 

"We are taking steps to address the need of customers and the public for enhanced internet services during this COVID outbreak," PLDT Inc said.

The boost is expected to meet the "expected greater need for data" of its customers, the telco said.



PLDT's wireless unit Smart Communications also offered free access to official websites starting March 11, it said.

Subscribers can access the Health department's official website, its NCOV tracker, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, the Philippine Information Agency for free, Smart said.

GLOBE TELECOM

Globe subscribers can also access the official sites of the DOH and the NDRRMC on free data, the telco said.

Globe and TM users who subscribed to KonsultaMD can get in touch with doctors via the 79880 telehealth hotline without any mobile call charges, it said.

The telco cautioned that using websites or apps to download movies or content illegally "hogs bandwidth." Subscribers should be "conscientious" with internet use while most Filipinos are working from home, Globe said. 

Both PLDT and Globe have announced a 30-day payment extensions to settle their monthly bills. 

"Globe believes that the extension of the bill payment will be one less worry for our customers especially during these difficult times," president and CEO Ernest Cu said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

IMF to test working from home in case virus strikes

WASHINGTON — All International Monetary Fund employees will work from home on Friday, the fund said Monday, to test systems in case the spreading coronavirus epidemic makes working remotely a necessity.

The World Bank, too, has been testing remote work procedures on a smaller scale, a spokesman told AFP.

Last week, the IMF and World Bank announced that their Spring meetings in April would become a virtual event amid the spread of COVID-19 which has sickened 110,564 people in 100 countries and killed 3,862.

As more governments and companies are encouraging work from home to contain the virus, the IMF said in a statement it would for the first time conduct a "fund-wide remote work exercise," as part of its "crisis preparedness efforts and in preparation for the virtual spring meetings in April."

"This exercise will allow us to further strengthen the fund's readiness to continue its operations and serve its membership during these trying times," a spokesperson said.

The World Bank is meanwhile testing remote work "department by department," and already has a "number of systems in place" to ensure staff can work remotely, a spokesman said, speaking from his home kitchen.

The development lending institutions hold meetings twice per-year, attracting thousands of officials, journalists and private sector participants from 180 member countries -- just the kind of gathering health authorities say should be avoided amid the outbreak.

The outbreak has caused the cancellation or postponement of a number of events, including the ASEAN summit US President Donald Trump was scheduled to host later this month.

Finance ministers and central bank governors from 189 IMF and World Bank member countries attend the Spring and annual meetings, in April and October, which also include a host of side gatherings, panels, conferences and related events all around in Washington. The official participant count is about 10,000.

The World Bank spokesman said those side events will be skipped this year. Only the institutions' 2 steering committees will meet, the International Monetary and Financial Committee and the Development Committee, which involve only about 2-dozen officials.

The flagship event ahead of the meetings is the release of the IMF's World Economic Outlook, which will be in the spotlight given the warnings that global growth will slow notably due to the broadening epidemic.

Agence France-Presse 

Work from home, travel curbs: World's employers adapt to coronavirus

SAN FRANCISCO — At Facebook on Thursday, the questions from spooked employees came thick and fast.

The evening before, the social network had disclosed that a contractor in one of its Seattle offices had been diagnosed with the coronavirus and had said that all employees in that city should work from home until March 31.

Other Facebook employees, some of whom had recently traveled for work, soon began asking their managers and one another: Who was the contractor? Had that person been near them? And what did that mean for their work?

That same alarm has now spread through other companies around the world, despite escalating efforts by many of the firms to deal with disruptions from the coronavirus outbreak that started in China. Microsoft, Amazon, Ford Motor, CNN, Citigroup and Twitter have put employees through work-from-home drills, dusted off emergency-response plans and implemented increasingly stringent safety measures to protect their workers.

Even so, the coronavirus has moved faster than their preparations. Amazon said this week that two employees in Europe, who had been in Milan, were infected with the virus and that one employee at its Seattle headquarters had also tested positive for it. HSBC said on Thursday that an employee at its global headquarters in London had been diagnosed with the coronavirus. And AT&T said a retail employee at one of its stores in San Diego had also tested positive.

The challenges faced by workplaces have become a new front in the battle over the coronavirus, which has spawned more than 90,000 cases and more than 3,000 deaths around the world. While factories in China had already been closed by the outbreak and are now just ramping back up, global white-collar companies have rarely grappled with this scale of disruption — or the level of fear that has gripped workers.

“No one has a playbook for this,” said Dan Levin, who runs a small company outside Chicago, Cain Millwork, which makes furniture and wall paneling. He said he was planning to have some of his office employees work from home.

Many corporate memos, including those from HSBC and Facebook, now mention deep cleaning of office spaces and self-quarantining. Face-to-face job interviews have been all but banned by some firms, in favor of interviews conducted by teleconference.

At Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington, near a cluster of coronavirus cases, employees swapped stories this week about the outbreak in internal chat rooms. In one online conversation on Wednesday, which was reviewed by The New York Times, a Microsoft employee wrote of a rumor that someone at headquarters had been infected.

“Could it be true?” he wrote. “FWIW,” he noted, the corporate emails telling employees to work from home “don’t mention that NO Microsoft employees had been infected.”

Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s chief spokesman, said the company was not aware of any verified cases in its workforce. He said Microsoft had tried to communicate clearly to its employees that “we are using the advice being given from local officials and public health officials.”

Inside Amazon, while some workers emailed each other about whether masks provide effective protection, many were scrambling to deal with business problems caused by the virus, according to four employees who were not authorized to speak publicly. Those included whether Amazon will have enough products to offer for Prime Day, its summer sale event, or have enough drivers to handle a surge in online grocery orders as the virus spreads.

The depth of employee anxiety has forced senior executives to take calming measures. Uber sent out a memo to staff on Wednesday saying it had formed an internal task force to handle its response to the virus, according to a copy viewed by The Times.

The ride-hailing company urged employees to have empathy for one another, to make “data-driven decisions” and restrict all nonessential travel until April. Uber added that it was working with an epidemiology consultant for further guidance.

“Much of this situation is new — not only for Uber, but for the world,” Andrew MacDonald, a senior vice president at Uber, wrote in the memo. “We won’t get everything right from the start.”

At its headquarters in Mountain View, California, Google also increased the amount of hand sanitizer available to employees, putting it in conference rooms and kitchen areas.

Other companies have tightened their travel restrictions. Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase have said senior managers must approve international business trips. Walmart said on Thursday that employees could travel internationally only for “business-critical trips” and that it was limiting their travel to conferences and trade shows within the United States. And at CNN, the chief executive officer has begun personally vetting all intercontinental travel.

How companies have altered their response to the coronavirus over time has been evident with Twitter. On Sunday, the San Francisco social media company said it was suspending all nonessential travel for employees. A day later, it encouraged all of its employees — it has just over 5,000 — to work from home if they were able to.

Then on Thursday, Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, appeared at a financial conference in San Francisco and said he was rethinking a plan he had formulated to work remotely from Africa for 3 to 6 months this year.

“Everything happening in the world, particularly with coronavirus, I have to reconsider what’s going on and what that means for me and for our company,” said Dorsey, who is also facing a challenge from activist investors.

The measures that companies are taking in response to the virus may shift workplace behavior over the long term. Telecommuting, which has been in and out of favor for decades, may become more ingrained. The use of digital tools for remote collaboration may also rise.

Yet in the near term, having workers stay home could be devastating for some smaller businesses. Robert Luft, who runs a company in Cincinnati that installs technology in health care facilities and distribution centers, said an outbreak that prevented his technicians from showing up to work would put his business in a precarious situation.

“If it’s unsafe for people to have them on site, that definitely impacts my business,” Luft said. “Unfortunately there isn’t any type of contingency plan.”

At Facebook, the company has been working on contingency plans for the impact of the coronavirus since January. Executives have tried to walk the line of hewing closely to advice from public health officials while trying not to cause a panic among employees, two Facebook employees said.

The social network quickly canceled its participation in a half-dozen events — from its annual F8 developer conference to its presence at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas — and has worked to use its products to help health experts study the spread of the virus. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said in a post this week the company was giving unlimited free Facebook ads to the World Health Organization to distribute information to users.

When one of its contractors was diagnosed with the virus on Wednesday, Facebook shut down two of its four offices in the greater Seattle area — in Bellevue and Redmond — for a deep cleaning, according to two employees.

An Amazon employee who was later diagnosed with the virus had also separately visited one of Facebook’s Seattle offices last month, prompting fresh concerns among employees. Facebook said it carried out “targeted deep cleaning and enhanced sanitation measures” at the office building that the Amazon employee had visited.

The company has also tried to keep its 44,000 employees sticking to business as usual. On Wednesday, it held a training session for managers on how to supervise teams of remote workers, the two employees said. And the social network was staying on course with a weekly question-and-answer session led by Zuckerberg on Thursday, which would be live streamed from Facebook’s Silicon Valley headquarters.

2020 The New York Times Company

Twitter staff told to work from home over virus fears

SAN FRANCISCO -- Twitter staff across the world were asked to work from home starting Monday in an effort to stop the spread of the deadly new coronavirus epidemic. 

The outbreak has spread across the world since emerging in central China late last year, killing more than 3,100 people, infecting over 90,000, and prompting a wave of travel restrictions. 

The social media platform's decision to ask its staff to avoid the office follows similar requests by governments in virus hotspots.

"We are strongly encouraging all employees globally to work from home if they're able," Twitter human resources chief Jennifer Christie said in a Monday blog post. 

"Our goal is to lower the probability of the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus for us -- and the world around us."

Working from home will be mandatory for employees at the company's South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan offices, Christie said.

South Korea has recorded nearly 5,000 confirmed COVID-19 infections -- the largest number outside mainland China -- along with 28 deaths. More than half of the cases have been linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a secretive religious group often described as a cult.

Japan's government has urged the closure of schools nationwide and employers to give their staff permission to work remotely. 

Most civil servants in Hong Kong returned to work on Monday after they were asked to work from home for a month. The financial hub has recorded 100 cases of the infection. 

Twitter had already announced the suspension of "non-critical" business travel and events last week. 

Agence France-Presse

Work from home offers fallback for AI-threatened jobs

MANILA -- Work from home schemes can be a fallback for call center agents who risk losing their jobs as their industry automates certain tasks, a jobs recruitment platform said Tuesday.

Up to 10,000 jobs daily are offered on Freelancer.com where 92,920 employers are looking for project-based workers for data entry, programming, graphic design, Excel and Photoshop, according to its vice president for sales, Sebastian Siseles

Finding a project-based job is easier since employers look for a skill instead of a college degree, Siseles told ABS-CBN News.

"We are looking for 1,000 different skills and abilities and you just need to know 1 thing, 1 skill for you to land a job," he said.

Freelancers are paid $196 or P10,000 per project on the average, "a lot bigger" compared to office work, he said.

The proposed Telecommuting Act, which seeks to provide equal pay and benefits for home-based workers compared to their office-based counterparts was passed by the Senate and the House in a bicameral conference last October.

Some 43,000 low-skilled workers could lose their jobs in the next 4 years when companies turn to artificial intelligence, instead of humans, to accomplish "repetitive" tasks, the IT and Business Process Outsourcing Association of the Philippines earlier said.

The freelancing industry can accommodate these workers as the network is "still growing," Siseles said.

The Philippines, with 1 million freelancers, leads Southeast Asia and is fourth in the world in terms of project-based work, he said.

India, United States and Pakistan are ahead of the Philippines only because of bigger populations and faster internet connections, he said.

English fluency is a "huge advantage" for Filipinos seeking freelance work, like in BPOs, he said.

Freelancing thrives because it removes "unnecessary intermediaries" that drive up costs, he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

How Pinoy earned P7.5-M from freelance work in just 1 year

MANILA, Philippines - Imagine earning millions of pesos from freelance work.

A programmer from Cavite earned P7.5 million in 2013, or a whopping average of P20,547 a day, while a writer from Gingoog City, Misamis Oriental earned P2.6 million last year.

How did they did do it?

The programmer and writer are just two of the one million Filipinos who found work on Elance and oDesk.

Elance and oDesk, which merged two months ago, are web-based freelancing platforms where companies can hire freelance workers of all kinds from all over the world.

These web-based freelancing platforms have helped many Filipinos earn good money.

In an interview with ABS-CBNnews.com, Ron Cirujano, country manager of Elance-oDesk, said 1 million Pinoys earned P3.3 billion from online work through Elance-oDesk in 2013.

This brought the total earnings of the Pinoy freelancers through Elance-oDesk to P9 billion, from 2010 to the first four months of 2014.

In the Cavite-based programmer's case, Cirujano said he earned his millions by creating mobile apps and software programs for online clients he got through o-Desk.

On the other hand, the writer from Gingoog earned P2.6 million in 2013 by doing content and creative writing work from clients on Elance.

Filipinos who are finding freelance work on Elance-oDesk are not just from Metro Manila, but also from the provinces.

Cebu is the top performing province, with Filipinos earning P706 million from Elance-oDesk between 2010 and 2014. The top earner in Cebu is a freelance admin worker, earning P2.3 million in 12 months.

In Iligan, earnings through the 2 platforms reached P342 million during the same period, while in Bacolod, earnings reached P221 million and in Davao, earnings hit P174 million.

In Metro Manila (Quezon City, Manila, Makati and Pasig), Filipinos earned P1.3 billion from freelance work on Elance-oDesk, from 2010 to the first four months of 2014.

Rise of online jobs

In recent years, there has been a rise in online outsourcing. Employers can now hire highly-skilled workers from anywhere in the world, increasing efficiency while saving on costs.

On Elance-oDesk alone, there are 8 million online freelancers and 2.5 million clients globally. Work on the two platforms totaled more than $750 million in 2013.

Many top global companies use the two platforms. Cirujano cited Microsoft, Walt Disney, NBC, Panasonic, Johnson & Johnson and Pinterest, as among their clients.

There are five main categories of jobs offered on Elance-oDesk: Admin, Marketing, Writing, Design and Programming.

Admin jobs are typically BPO and call center work, as well as data entry, virtual assisting, medical transcription, and customer service. Marketing jobs usually involve social media and company account management, while writing jobs involve coming out with press releases, blog entries and other content.

Design jobs would entail logo-making and animation, while programming would involve IT work such as web development, mobile apps and games.

"Filipinos often focus on admin jobs, this is due to the familiarity of Filipinos to do call center type of work. We have a good number of IT talents as well - our hardworking nature combined with our service oriented culture makes us very attractive to clients," Cirujano said.

How does Elance-oDesk work? Cirujano said it involves a bidding system. The online worker searches for a job on the site's search section. Once he sees a job he likes, he can submit his proposal for the project. His proposal would include details on how he will undertake the tasks and how much he will charge the client.

"Once he is able to deliver, he will be paid in the platform and he can withdraw it by using his local bank account (local fund transfer)," Cirujano said.

Elance offers free membership, where one can bid up to 40 projects in a month. ODesk, on the other hand, has free membership where one can make 25 bids per week.

The platforms earn by charging the clients - Elance charges 8.75 percent per transaction, while oDesk charges 10 percent per transaction.

"It's the client who pays for it, not the online worker, so technically, the free account is really for free," Cirujano said.

Tips for freelancers

Cirujano also gave some tips on how you can be successful at online work.

1. Create a great profile. Make sure to give a good background information on your skills, experience and capabilities.

2. Upload a good portfolio. This is for your potential client to know the quality of your work and it will also show your creativity (this is really useful if you are a designer).

3. Upload a great photo.

4. When bidding for a project, make sure to create a customized proposal. Your potential client will know if you read the job posting clearly - always review for typo and grammatical errors before submitting.

5. Always deliver on time.

6. Keep an open communication with your client

7. Always ask. This is so you are sure that you and your client are on the same page and are clear on deliverables.

8. Under promise, over deliver! This will ensure that your client will keep coming back to you.

9. If you are a beginner, prove you are actually good. Take skills tests, these are free exams on both elance.com and odesk.com that will reflect the scores on your profile.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

So you want to go freelance? Here are some tips

MANILA, Philippines - Ditching the office, the monotony and especially your boss, in favor of going freelance may seem like a good idea when you're tired and frustrated.

But that freedom comes with a price and if you're not careful with handling your own money, you may find yourself begging for the consistency and safety of being a regular employee.

On ANC's "On the Money," chairman and chief executive officer of Personal Finance Advisers Corp. Efren Cruz, shared some tips on what you will need in order to successfully make that leap towards self-employment.

Save up
According to Cruz, one has to ensure that he has enough funds for what he called, "the permanent working capital," which includes both household expenses and business expenses.

"It is like the blood that runs through your veins," said Cruz.

He also warned that those who would like to become their own boss should be able to pay for these expenses, especially the ones for employees and supplies, without relying on revenues, which are inconsistent in nature.

"In case they don't come on time [revenues], you should also have a sort of emergency fund for your household needs and for your business," Cruz suggested.

Borrow just enough

But what if you don't have enough money just yet, but you can't stand working for your boss anymore?

Cruz quipped that borrowing the funds needed for your freelance business from banks would just result in you "working for them and not for yourself"

"At most, borrow 50% of the capital you need," he said.

Question your "must-spend"

Without the help of regular income, freelancers should be able to cut down their expenses with respect to their earnings.

Cruz suggested that freelancers divide their expenses into a "must-spend" and a "may-spend," then compute the earnings they need in order to pay for these expenses plus taxes.

"If you think you can't earn that or are not earning that, then just go back to your expenses," he said.

"It's easier to cut the may-spend but if it still doesn't work out, then you have to question your beliefs in the must-spend," Cruz added.

Reinvest earnings

And because people can't possibly do their freelance work forever, Cruz advised them to keep the "cash-flow" moving.

"Whatever earnings you have, reinvest it. You don't have to reinvest it in the business itself, you can find other businesses or you can find investment securities to make sure that your money keeps on working till the day you die," he said.

But warned that the funds that are going to be used for investments should be from unrestricted earnings.

"The funds shouldn't come from debt."

Don't forget taxes

According to Cruz, one of the common mistakes that freelancers make whenever they start out is that they tend to leave taxes out of their computations.

"If you are selling to corporations, they would normally withhold taxes from you...But many people believe that since taxes are withheld, [they] already paid their taxes," Cruz said.

Freelancers that are earning more than P720,000 in a year should pay the Bureau of Internal Revenue a professional tax of 15%.

"You pay your taxes quarterly," reminded Cruz.

And lastly, say goodbye to company benefits

Be prepared to lose company benefits like free transportation, uniforms, paid vacations and sick leaves because as Cruz said, "these are all gone when you're self-employed."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com