A growing number of Canadian tech companies are asking employees to work from home in an effort to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Home-grown e-commerce company Shopify and search engine giant Google are asking employees in Canada to work from home to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
“As COVID-19 continues to impact people and countries around the world, Shopify will be going remote first starting March 16th,” says its Twitter feed. “Working from home will help play a part in reducing the spread of the virus, and hopefully lessen its potentially huge burden on the health-care system.”
Many tech companies already provide workers remote access. According to Ottawa-based Shopify, 30 per cent of its 5,000 worldwide employees are already working from home.
To ease the transition next week Shopify is providing its employees with a $1,000 stipend to buy supplies for their remote office.
Employees can purchase office equipment such as lamps, office chairs and a new desk, then submit the “one-time remote allowance through their expenses.”