Newyork based multinational financial services corporation, American Express has advised its employees to continue working from home for the rest of the year through a video message on LinkedIn by CEO Steve Squeri.
“We still don’t know exactly when we’ll start coming back. We expect it will take several months in most locations. The key here is that returning to the location will not happen all at once.”
Steve Squeri, CEO – American Express
Mr. Squeri said the company would open buildings on a “location by location, floor by floor and colleague by colleague basis”, with the work environment expected to be “completely different” from what it was before the outbreak.
“If you can work from home effectively, you should plan on doing this for the rest of the year,” he said, adding that Amex’s offices in the near term will mostly serve as an alternative workspace.
Amex employees that need to work from the office will return in phases, starting with 10 percent occupancy, and no likelihood of it reaching close to 50 percent this year.
Mr. Squeri said employees returning to offices would not be permitted to hold meetings in conference rooms. Rules would also discourage visitors and access to cafeterias, in addition to other social distancing measures and temperature screening.
As the virus outbreak hit business volumes, Amex shifted from a largely brick-and-mortar operation to having more than 60,000 employees equipped to work from home and two-thirds of its customer-care professionals working remotely by March-end.
