Facebook joins Twitter and Microsoft in saying its staff can work from home after the pandemic

• Facebook said its employees could work from home even after the pandemic.
• Facebook staff will need approval from their manager for full-time remote work.
• Other tech giants, such as Twitter, have also said they will let people work from home forever.

Facebook on Sunday said its employees can continue to work from home after the coronavirus pandemic, joining other tech giants who have told staff they can work remotely forever.

Facebook previously said employees may continue working remotely up until June 2021. But Brynn Harrington, vice president of Facebook's HR team, told the BBC that some employees have been "really thriving" at home and want to continue working remotely.

"For example, parents who are closer to their children and are happy to cut their commute time and optimize their work day, they're thrilled to work from home," she said.

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Staff can apply to their managers for permanent remote working, Harrington added.

She said remote work was "the future," but that it hadn't been an easy adjustment for some staff.

"Obviously this is working from home during a pandemic, we are not in a period of healthy remote work," she said.

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"We have people juggling care giving responsibilities, we have people living in small apartments with roommates, those people desperately want to get back into offices, and we're working really hard to do that, as soon as it's safe to open our offices."

Facebook first announced full-time remote work for employees in May 2020.

Facebook is planning to reopen its Silicon Valley offices in May at a maximum of 10% capacity, according to a Bloomberg report. Workers would be required to wear face masks, social distance, and in some cases, get tested weekly for the virus, the report said.

In May, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he expected 50% of the company's workforce to be entirely remote within the next decade.

Facebook is following other tech giants who are adopting long-term work-from home policies. Twitter was one of the first social media companies to tell employees that they could work from home indefinitely, for example.

Microsoft also announced in October it was giving employees the choice whether to work from home or the office. They're only allowed to work remotely for less than half of their hours on average - if they wanted to work remotely for longer, they will have to speak to their manager, Microsoft said.