Even as the coronavirus has thrown companies across the world into disarray, the best employers are still finding time to help out their employees tide over the crisis.
Google has suspended company-wide performance reviews of employees, as its leaders deemed the process a distraction from more pressing challenges facing the company amid the coronavirus pandemic, The Information reported. Google’s vice president of people operations, Eileen Naughton, announced the change in an email distributed to Google employees on Tuesday night. Google’s performance reviews happen twice a year and are particularly comprehensive, with employees taking in large amounts of time to review their and their colleagues’ work, and its cancellation is a signal to the degree to which the coronavirus has impacted the company’s business. Google had earlier also asked its employees to work from home as the coronavirus had spread.
Fellow tech giant Facebook has also done away with performance reviews, announcing that all of its 45,000 employees will get an “exceeds” rating for their first six months of 2020. The better-than-average rating will likely bring with it high bonuses for Facebook’s employees when they’re announced at the end of the cycle. And to help employees tide over the coronavirus crisis, Facebook is giving all employees a $1000 bonus. Facebook is also paying its hourly workers even if they can’t work and have to be at home because of the coronavirus. Facebook has also asked its Seattle and Bay Area employees to work from home if they are able, and banned social visitors to its offices.
Amazon, for its part, has not only asked employees to work from home, but is also aggressively hiring to keep up with the spike in demand that it’s seeing. With people unable to venture out into supermarkets and shops, it’s expected that Amazon’s sales will sharply move up during the coronavirus outbreak. Amazon said that it’s adding 100,000 full-time and part-time workers to keep up with the higher demand.
Apple, like other companies, also also asked staff to work from home, but its secretive culture is reportedly making it hard. WSJ reported that software developers have said there’s been confusion over what work they’re allowed to perform from home, while some workers have said they can’t access internal systems from home because of Apple’s security measures. Apple, for its part, has also closed all its Apple stores outside of greater China.