With the 2020 Coronavirus now moving from ‘that seems serious’ to ‘this is terrifying’, concerns are growing worldwide. Many wonder what the future for the global economy is going to be, with such brittle confidence around the financial future of the globe becoming quite a common talking point.
However, in amongst all of the drama and the challenges, a solution appears to be forming from Microsoft. The company has agreed to pay all of their staff on their payroll regular wages – even if their hours are forcefully reduced due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
With more and more cases being identified in the USA and beyond, most people worry about what it will mean for their health. Indeed, many companies are flat-out refusing to give any kind of peace of mind to their staff.
Microsoft, though, has moved quickly to say that it will continue paying all of their service providers the same rate.
This has been mentioned mostly for people in the Puget Sound and North California networks, though. However, the company itself has said that it look into “how to best move forward in a similar way in other parts of the country and the world that are impacted by COVID-19.”
Recognizing the Hardship that Lost Work Can Mean for Hourly Employees
Anyone in those regions who works for MS has apparently been told to start working from home if it is possible that they can do so.
In a blog post about this, Microsoft president Brad Smith stated:
“As a result, we have reduced need in those regions for the on-site presence of many of the hourly workers who are vital to our daily operations, such as individuals who work for our vendors and staff our cafes, drive our shuttles and support our on-site tech and audio-visual needs".
“We recognize the hardship that lost work can mean for hourly employees. As a result, we’ve decided that Microsoft will continue to pay all our vendor hourly service providers their regular pay during this period of reduced service needs.”
While the work to protect public health needs to speed up, the economy can’t afford to slow down. That's one reason we will pay the hourly workers who support our campuses their regular wages as we manage through COVID-19. https://t.co/HKJk0bWlQD
— Brad Smith (@BradSmi) March 6, 2020
Microsoft is one of the few companies to have made it clear that IT staff should be working from home at this present moment in time. Major cases in places like California and Washington have been the most heavily hit outbreaks.
This has led to major events in business, finance, politics, and sport to be canceled.
As the virus continues its fearsome spread, more action is needed by companies to try and find an active solution.
As Smith says, though, Microsoft has managed to make a clear decision and given the fairness of their call, we’d have to say it’s a call that more companies should be echoing moving forward.